The effect of microfinance factors on women entrepreneurs’ performance in Nigeria: a conceptual framework
01 Jan 2011-
TL;DR: In this paper, the effect of credit, savings, training, and social capital on women entrepreneurs' performance in Nigeria was examined using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM).
Abstract: Women play a crucial role in the economic development of their families and communities but certain
obstacles such as poverty, unemployment, low household income and societal discriminations mostly in
developing countries have hindered their effective performance of that role. As such, most of them embark on
entrepreneurial activities to support their families. It is discovered that women entrepreneurship could be an
effective strategy for poverty reduction in a country; since women are the worst hit in such situation.
However, it is discovered that women entrepreneurs, especially in developing countries, do not have easy
access to microfinance factors for their entrepreneurial activity and as such have low business performance
than their men counterparts, whereas the rate of their participation in the informal sector of the economy is
higher than males, and microfinance factors could have positive effect on enterprise performance. The
objective of this study is to examine the effect of credit, savings, training and social capital on women
entrepreneurs’ performance in Nigeria. The study involves a survey using structured questionnaire and an indepth
interview to solicit responses from women entrepreneurs, and secondary data from microfinance
institutions. Data analysis involves the use of Structural Equation Modelling.
Citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a model that shows the effects of different internal and external factors on women entrepreneurs' performance, and examined the opportunity recognition as a mediator between influencing factors and performance of women entrepreneurs.
Abstract: Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the entrepreneurship literature by identifying factors influencing women entrepreneurs’ performance (EP) and the corresponding challenges in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The study also examines the opportunity recognition (OR) as a mediator between influencing factors and performance of women entrepreneurs.
Design/methodology/approach
– The study proposes a model that shows the effects of different internal and external factors on women EP.
Findings
– The paper demonstrates several challenges that are encountered by women entrepreneurs such as lack of access to financial resources, difficulty in finding qualified labors, work-home conflict and low profit. The results suggest that the most influencing factor is industry (SMEs) characteristics followed by entrepreneurial goals and motivations (EGM), and legal factors. Additionally, OR is found to mediate EGM, and industry characteristics.
Research limitations/implications
– As the study is conducted in Bahrain, it may lack generalization. In future research, it is advisable to expand study factors, use interviews as a research tool and make comparison between women and men entrepreneurial performances.
Practical implications
– The paper can help increase women EP and enable them to make use of the business environment in a more efficient and effective way.
Originality/value
– Although several papers already exist that discuss issues on women entrepreneurs, there has been little research focussing on factors influencing and challenges facing women entrepreneurs, particularly in the Middle East. The study explores important issues and calls for more research in this domain.
69 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored major barriers that obstruct smooth development of women entrepreneurship in Uganda's urban informal economy and provided some useful academic insights and offers some practical suggestions for improving policy for women entrepreneurs.
Abstract: Business in the urban informal economy can be seen as a challenging terrain with enormous hurdles for women entrepreneurs. This paper explores major barriers that obstruct smooth development of women entrepreneurship in Uganda’s urban informal economy. The study provides some useful academic insights and offers some practical suggestions for improving policy for women entrepreneurs. The value of this research lies in providing significant insights related to the initiation of policies and programs for entrepreneurship development, but also in increasing women’s involvement in the urban informal economy through a better understanding of the gender-based barriers to entrepreneurship. It is hoped that the study will influence business development in the urban informal economies of Uganda in particular, and Africa in general.
37 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a set of hypotheses that delineate how a specific feature of language, gender marking in grammar, moderates the role of institutional (state capacity and organizational status and global ties) factors in shaping micro-finance outreach to women.
36 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of micro-finance institutions in women empowerment was examined and the moderating role of vulnerability was also examined, which showed that vulnerability moderated the relationship between social capital and women empowerment.
Abstract: Women-Empowerment is one of the most crucial challenge in Pakistan. Pakistani women are con-tributing only 25-30% in nation’s economy which is quite low as compared with other developed as well as developing countries such as United Kingdom (UK), United States of America (USA), Ma-laysia, China, Indonesia and India. To address this problem, the primary objective of this study was to examine the role of microfinance institutions in women-empowerment. Moreover, moderating role of vulnerability was also examined. Quantitative research approach and cross-sectional research design were adopted. Data were collected from the female clients of microfinance institutes in Southern Punjab, Pakistan. Survey was conducted to collect the data and questionnaires were dis-tributed by using area cluster sampling. SmartPLS (SEM) was used to analyze the data. It was found that non-financial services of microfinance institutes such as training/skill development pro-grams and social capital development had positive contributions towards women-empowerment. Moreover, vulnerability moderated the relationship between social capital and women empowerment. Thus, this study contributed in the body of literature by investigating vulnerability as moderating variable. Hence, this study is beneficial for microfinance institutes to enhance women-empowerment through training/skill development and social capital development.
29 citations
Cites background from "The effect of microfinance factors ..."
...Women are the integral part of every society as women community is playing a key role in the economic growth of country and their families (Ekpe et al., 2010)....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the impact of openness and extraversion traits on the innovative behavior of entrepreneurs in a selected area of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, and found that entrepreneurs who were high on extraversion exhibited more innovative behavior than those who were low on it.
Abstract: Entrepreneurs are visionary, goal-driven, innovative individuals who are oriented to developing new businesses and making it a profitable one. These abilities are affected and boosted by some certain factors or traits possessed by them. This study examined the impact of openness and extraversion traits on the innovative behavior of entrepreneurs in a selected area of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Subjects for this study were 120 solo operators (entrepreneurs) in an area of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria consisting of 53 males and 67 females, aged between 18 and 51. Two hypotheses were tested and the findings of the study revealed a significant difference between openness and innovative behavior; also the result of the study showed that entrepreneurs who were high on extraversion exhibited more innovative behavior than those who were low on it. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that entrepreneurs should observe and build on dominant traits inherent in them. To be a successful entrepreneur, it is pertinent to understand one’s personality. Key words : Personality traits; Innovative behavior; Entrepreneurs; Openness; Extraversion
24 citations
References
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TL;DR: Ajzen, 1985, 1987, this article reviewed the theory of planned behavior and some unresolved issues and concluded that the theory is well supported by empirical evidence and that intention to perform behaviors of different kinds can be predicted with high accuracy from attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control; and these intentions, together with perceptions of behavioral control, account for considerable variance in actual behavior.
65,095 citations
"The effect of microfinance factors ..." refers background in this paper
...Behavioral theories such as the Theory of Planned Behavior, specifically the Intention Theory (Ajzen, 1991) concluded that attitude towards behavior leads to intention which eventually leads to actual behavior....
[...]
...Studies have found that attitude and behavioural intention are positively related (Crisp & Turner, 2007) and that attitude towards behaviour leads to intention which eventually leads to actual behaviour (Ajzen, 1991)....
[...]
Book•
01 Jan 1990TL;DR: Douglass C. North as discussed by the authors developed an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time.
Abstract: Continuing his groundbreaking analysis of economic structures, Douglass North develops an analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies, both at a given time and over time. Institutions exist, he argues, due to the uncertainties involved in human interaction; they are the constraints devised to structure that interaction. Yet, institutions vary widely in their consequences for economic performance; some economies develop institutions that produce growth and development, while others develop institutions that produce stagnation. North first explores the nature of institutions and explains the role of transaction and production costs in their development. The second part of the book deals with institutional change. Institutions create the incentive structure in an economy, and organisations will be created to take advantage of the opportunities provided within a given institutional framework. North argues that the kinds of skills and knowledge fostered by the structure of an economy will shape the direction of change and gradually alter the institutional framework. He then explains how institutional development may lead to a path-dependent pattern of development. In the final part of the book, North explains the implications of this analysis for economic theory and economic history. He indicates how institutional analysis must be incorporated into neo-classical theory and explores the potential for the construction of a dynamic theory of long-term economic change. Douglass C. North is Director of the Center of Political Economy and Professor of Economics and History at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a past president of the Economic History Association and Western Economics Association and a Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written over sixty articles for a variety of journals and is the author of The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (CUP, 1973, with R.P. Thomas) and Structure and Change in Economic History (Norton, 1981). Professor North is included in Great Economists Since Keynes edited by M. Blaug (CUP, 1988 paperback ed.)
27,080 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the role that institutions, defined as the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction, play in economic performance and how those institutions change and how a model of dynamic institutions explains the differential performance of economies through time.
Abstract: Examines the role that institutions, defined as the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction, play in economic performance and how those institutions change and how a model of dynamic institutions explains the differential performance of economies through time. Institutions are separate from organizations, which are assemblages of people directed to strategically operating within institutional constraints. Institutions affect the economy by influencing, together with technology, transaction and production costs. They do this by reducing uncertainty in human interaction, albeit not always efficiently. Entrepreneurs accomplish incremental changes in institutions by perceiving opportunities to do better through altering the institutional framework of political and economic organizations. Importantly, the ability to perceive these opportunities depends on both the completeness of information and the mental constructs used to process that information. Thus, institutions and entrepreneurs stand in a symbiotic relationship where each gives feedback to the other. Neoclassical economics suggests that inefficient institutions ought to be rapidly replaced. This symbiotic relationship helps explain why this theoretical consequence is often not observed: while this relationship allows growth, it also allows inefficient institutions to persist. The author identifies changes in relative prices and prevailing ideas as the source of institutional alterations. Transaction costs, however, may keep relative price changes from being fully exploited. Transaction costs are influenced by institutions and institutional development is accordingly path-dependent. (CAR)
26,011 citations
Book•
01 Sep 2003
TL;DR: In the first exhaustive treatment of the field in 20 years, Scott Shane as discussed by the authors extended the analysis of entrepreneurship by offering an overarching conceptual framework that explains the different parts of the entrepreneurial process -the opportunities, the people who pursue them, skills and strategies used to organize and exploit opportunities, and the environmental conditions favorable to them.
Abstract: In the first exhaustive treatment of the field in 20 years, Scott Shane extends the analysis of entrepreneurship by offering an overarching conceptual framework that explains the different parts of the entrepreneurial process - the opportunities, the people who pursue them, the skills and strategies used to organize and exploit opportunities, and the environmental conditions favorable to them - in a coherent way. Given the level of interest devoted to entrepreneurship in the economy and among academics at business schools, one would think that researchers would have deep insights into this phenomenon. However, those who look closely at academic investigations of entrepreneurship realize that scholarly understanding of this field is quite limited. Unlike its sister fields of accounting, marketing, finance, organizational behavior and strategic management, entrepreneurship is rather poorly explained by academics. Scott Shane resolves this by considering the nexus of enterprising individuals and valuable opportunities and by using that nexus to understand the processes of discovery and exploitation of opportunities, the acquisition of resources, entrepreneurial strategy and the organi
3,091 citations
"The effect of microfinance factors ..." refers background or methods in this paper
...Appropriate use of acquired resources through good business strategy and organizational design could lead to business performance (Brana, 2008; Koontz & Weihrich, 2006; Salman, 2009; Shane, 2003)....
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...Exploitation of the opportunity depends on the entrepreneur’s level of education, skills or knowledge acquired through work experience, social networks, credit, and cost-benefit analysis of the business (Shane, 2003)....
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...Evaluation of the identified opportunity is another stage in the entrepreneurial process, and appropriate decision at this stage leads to the decision to exploit the opportunity (Shane, 2003)....
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...The discovery of business opportunity and the decision to exploit the opportunity leads to a search for external funds, and the acquisition of such funds again creates opportunity for entrepreneurial income-generating activity (Shane, 2003)....
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...Micro-finance factors create opportunity for entrepreneurial activity (Shane, 2003); as such there is a positive relationship between micro-finance factors and opportunity for entrepreneurial activity....
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01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: In this article, the authors question the simplicity of the common prescription that more thinking leads to better 26 moral choices and discover that the relationship between how complexly one reasons 27 before making a decision with moral consequences is related to the outcome of that decision in a curvi
Abstract: In this paper, we question the simplicity of the common prescription that more thinking leads to better 26 moral choices In three studies, we discover that the relationship between how complexly one reasons 27 before making a decision with moral consequences is related to the outcome of that decision in a curvi
1,862 citations
"The effect of microfinance factors ..." refers background in this paper
...Behavioral theories such as the Theory of Planned Behavior, specifically the Intention Theory (Ajzen, 1991) concluded that attitude towards behavior leads to intention which eventually leads to actual behavior....
[...]
...Studies have found that attitude and behavioural intention are positively related (Crisp & Turner, 2007) and that attitude towards behaviour leads to intention which eventually leads to actual behaviour (Ajzen, 1991)....
[...]