Women Entrepreneurs: Reasons and Difficulties for Starting in Business

Authors

  • Hilka Pelizza Vier Machado Universidade do Vale do Itajaí Centro de Estudos Superiores de Maringá UniCesumar
  • Sebastião Gazola Universidade Estadual de Maringá
  • Joiceli dos Santos Fabrício Universidade Estadual de Maringá
  • Miguel Eduardo Moreno Anez Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte

Keywords:

Starting in Business. Women Entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship. Gender. Small Businesses.

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this research is to describe the main reasons and difficulties for women to establish businesses and to identify possible differences between those that go into industry and those that establish commerce or service businesses.

Originality/Gap/Relevance/Implications: The establishment of business is highly important for Entrepreneurship and its understanding is relevant to pinpoint the reasons and identify the difficulties that entrepreneurs have to establish their companies.

Key methodological aspects: A quantitative study of 102 industry women entrepreneurs and 96 commerce / services entrepreneurs was carried out. Data were collected by a structured questionnaire and by two Likert scales which measured reasons and difficulties in the establishment of companies. A cluster analysis was undertaken to identify possible groups of attributes related to reasons and difficulties in the establishment of enterprises to group variables. Mann-Whitney test was employed to compare reasons and difficulties in the establishment of enterprises between the two groups (industry and commerce/service) to identify statistically significant differences.

Summary of key results: Results by Mann-Whitney test revealed that the two groups assigned the same level of importance to the reasons for business establishment: improvement difficulty in the previous job; desire to financially help offspring; re-entry into the labor market; earning lot of money. The same test showed no significant difference in importance level assigned to eight difficulties for the establishment of business: I did not believe in my own capacity; I had never had any link with other companies; I did not have any access to industry information; People did not believe in my potential; I was afraid to quit my job; I was never acquainted with a business plan; I had no money for advertising my business; I found it difficult to choose the location of the company.

Key considerations/conclusions: Results show that women entrepreneurs are not a homogenous group and that there is a need for public policies that would minimize difficulties in the setting up of companies to increase women´s participation as entrepreneurs.

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Author Biographies

Hilka Pelizza Vier Machado, Universidade do Vale do Itajaí Centro de Estudos Superiores de Maringá UniCesumar

Professora do Mestrado em Administração da Universidade do Vale do Itajaí.

Professora do Mestrado em Gestão do Conhecimento do Centro de Estudos Superiores de Maringá UniCesumar 

Doutora em Engenharia de Produção pela UFSC

Sebastião Gazola, Universidade Estadual de Maringá

Professor do Departamento de Estatística da Universidade Estadual de Maringá

Doutorado pela Universidade Estadual de Maringá

Joiceli dos Santos Fabrício, Universidade Estadual de Maringá

Mestre em Administração pela Universidade Estadual de Maringá

Miguel Eduardo Moreno Anez, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte

Professor Do Mestrado e Doutorado em Administração da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte

Doutor em Administração pela Getulio Vargas SP

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Published

2016-06-23

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 3 (2016)

Section

Human and Social Management

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