Motivation of female entrepreneurs: a cross-national study
Open Access
- 11 November 2019
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Emerald in Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development
- Vol. 26 (5), 684-705
- https://doi.org/10.1108/jsbed-10-2018-0306
Abstract
Purpose This paper focuses on the motivation of females to start businesses in developed and emerging economies. Although the issues related to the motivation of entrepreneurs have been widely studied, there are a few studies focusing on the differences in women's entrepreneurial motivation in countries with different levels of market economy development. Furthermore, existing studies on female founders mainly adapt the concepts that have often been developed in male-dominated paradigm. The purpose of this paper is to explore in depth motivations of female entrepreneurs in different contexts and discover the dissimilarities in women's entrepreneurial motivations in countries with different levels of economic development. Design/methodology/approach The qualitative research approach is applied in this study to explore the social-driven and profit-driven motives of female entrepreneurs. The authors have employed purposeful sampling to select cases. The authors investigated the motivations of 45 female entrepreneurs in Norway (12), Russia (21) and Ukraine (12). Semi-structured interviews were used to collect primary data. The authors have also triangulated the data collected from interviews with the data available on the internet, company reports and newspaper publications. Findings The findings indicate that women often pursuit business opportunities to satisfy social needs, rather than focusing on traditional business outcomes such as growth or profit. However, different contexts - the emerging economies context of Russia and Ukraine and the developed one of Norway - seem to influence the motivation to establish new ventures differently. The study found a stronger desire to contribute to a society's needs among female founders in Norway compared to their counterparts in Russia and Ukraine. This indicates that cultural and social context in developed countries, such as in Norway, probably provides more possibilities for female entrepreneurs for self-realisation elsewhere leaving more room for focusing on societal issues in business in comparison with emerging countries contexts. Originality/value A novel conceptual contribution is the exploration of links between the social-driven and profit-driven motives of female entrepreneurs in emerging and developed economises. The study also adds to debates relating to context embeddedness of smaller firms.Keywords
This publication has 78 references indexed in Scilit:
- State-controlled economies vs. rent-seeking states: Why small and medium enterprises might support state officialsEntrepreneurship & Regional Development, 2013
- Effectuation, Causation, and Bricolage: A Behavioral Comparison of Emerging Theories in Entrepreneurship ResearchEntrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2012
- Contextualizing Entrepreneurship—Conceptual Challenges and Ways ForwardEntrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2011
- Entrepreneurial Motivations: What Do We Still Need to Know?Journal of Small Business Management, 2010
- Firm resources, opportunity recognition, entrepreneurial orientation and performance: the case of Russian women-led family businessesInternational Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2010
- The Entrepreneurial Propensity of WomenEntrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2007
- The Promise of Entrepreneurship as a Field of ResearchAcademy of Management Review, 2000
- The motivation of women entrepreneurs in SingaporeWomen in Management Review, 1996
- A Comparison of Entrepreneurs and Managers of Small Business FirmsJournal of Management, 1987
- The Strength of Weak TiesAmerican Journal of Sociology, 1973