Development of Women Entrepreneurs in Selected Businesses

Development of Women Entrepreneurs

in Selected Businesses

A Study on Institutional Supports

Dedicated To

MY PARENTS AND FAMILY But for whose

benevolent support and tolerance, this thesis could not

have seen the light of the day.

Foreword

It is my pleasure to write a foreword for this timely publication entitled “Development of Women Entrepreneurs in Selected Businesses: A Study on Institutional Supports” by Dr. Mohammad Abul Hasan. It is an excellent piece of work exploring new areas and dimensions of women's entrepreneurship in our country. The researcher has endeavored to examine the relationship between women's entrepreneurship and institutional supports for business in the context of our country. In-depth research on this issue is meagre and whatever we find is not meaningfully utilized in the intervention situation. Research activities exploring business environments, especially those concerning women's entrepreneurship, have far-reaching implications for giving a clear-cut direction for our women entrepreneurs. This work can even contribute to their understanding of the need for diverse circumstances and issues of support from institutions, framing the leadership and implementing the policy agenda for their business promotion.

Women's development has always been a challenge in the developing countries. It is more so for Bangladesh, a developing nation with a huge population still living below the poverty line and with pervasive social inequality and gender discrimination. It is very important that women be supported institutionally so that their self-reliance can be achieved and their fundamental rights as well as human rights are ensured.

It is crystal clear that women's entrepreneurship cannot be developed in Bangladesh without institutional supports, despite the existing enormous scope for the development of entrepreneurship for women. By now, it has already been proven that women's entrepreneurship can be developed successfully across the trades and irrespective of the nature of initiatives for business, including traditional household products, food items and services. Financial services like loans from banks or financial institutions or from other GOs or NGOs, and non-financial services like training, networking and motivational activities are key to development of any kind of entrepreneurship, which obviously is the main concern of women. They evidently deserve to get extended and steady support from the concerned institutions to open new avenues for a better quality of life.

I am confident that this book will contribute to changing the socio-economic conditions of women in our country through making a smooth provision of institutional supports to institutionalize and sustain women's entrepreneurship in the business arena of our country. It will also provide guidance to policy makers and implementers to promote women's entrepreneurship.

Tahrunnesa Abdullah

Ramond Magsayse Awardee

A Few Words From The Author

Bangladesh, where social inequality and pervasive gender discrimination prevail and many people live below the poverty line, inculcates the Vision-2021 to achieve the status of a middle income country through steady economic growth for a hunger, unemployment, inequality and discrimination free society. Our country is characterized by high population density and low resource base where the issues of Human Resource Development (HRD) is getting huge momentum to redress the unaddressed areas of women development through different schemes and initiatives for improving their quality of life. Women account for half of the total population and they still remain vulnerable and neglected in the family as well as in the social environment. They are generally deprived of opportunities for development. Mention should be made here that development and growth of children are highly dependent on the quality of life of women which again depends on the level of economic self-reliance of women that can be achieved through entrepreneurial leadership. Once they are empowered they can then lead other marginalised women groups towards financial independence.

In this research, initiative has been taken to identify the barriers of institutional supports for the women and also to unite their strengths which can be beneficial in policy making. This research aims to create awareness amongst men and the inner circle of women to create the essential support that women need to run business initiatives.

This manuscript has been prepared on the basis of my dissertation on the “Development of Women Entrepreneurs in Selected Businesses: A Study on Institutional Supports” has been submitted for the partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree. A number of persons and institutions have contributed to this empirical study. It is an honour and with great pleasure I would like to recognise their contribution. A special thanks is for my learned supervisor Professor Dr. M. Mohsin Ali for his invaluable advice, co-operation and continuous guidance, critical evaluation and constructive suggestions from the incubation of the research proposal up to the final production of the dissertation. I would also like to thank Mrs. Tahrunnesa Abdullah for graciously penning down the foreword of this book. Finally, I express my profound gratitude to the Almighty Allah for His grace and blessings without which no one can smile let alone achieve a PhD degree.

It will be highly appreciated if readers send their comments, suggestions and guidance for further enrichment and development of this work.

Dr. Mohammad Abul Hasan

Date : 01.02.2012

Abstract

Women’s development has always been a challenge in the developing countries. Bangladesh, where most people live below the poverty line, social inequality and gender discrimination is pervasive, it is important that women be supported institutionally. In both financial and legal areas, there is ample scope to work in supporting women to achieve self-reliance to defend their basic rights and the development of human rights.

In this regard, the researcher finds it significant to analyze the role of institutional supports(ISs) in the development of women entrepreneurs (WEs). It is because, entrepreneurship can help a woman twice first, it can make her self-reliant, and secondly, it can help her to empower other women who do not have an opportunity to grow up. In most rural and even urban areas of Bangladesh, the lack of opportunity stands as the most serious hurdle against women to establish themselves as developed persons, let alone become successful entrepreneurs.

It is evident that without ISs women entrepreneurship (WE) cannot be developed in a country like Bangladesh. This study identifies the types of ISs available for the development of WEs and needs of various supports for the development and sustainability of WEs.

This study used both quantitative and qualitative methods adopting personal interview survey strategy. Government and non-government organizations working for the development of WEs including international agencies and selected women micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (WMSMEs) were studied. The identification of nature of WEs and supply and demand of ISs for their development were also searched. The study area covers five among the six divisions of the country. The enterprises studied are located at 19 places and they were from five metropolitan areas, nine district headquarters and four upa-zillas. The study area had been selected from urban areas only as the rural women do not have any market access, which is one of the issues of this study. The primary data was analyzed with the help of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS), statistical software.

The study finds that enterprises run by women were associated with household products, food items and services. Among them manufacturing enterprises were mostly engaged in making household products with mud, bamboo, cane, wood and food items with milk. The enterprises run by women are proprietorship form of business with relatively small amount of capital.

From the study, it is viewed that WEs got some support from enterprise development related institutions, which are classified into financial and non-financial services. Financial ISs includes banks loan and credit from financial institutions or other GOs or NGOs, which were used to meet the requirement for working and fixed capital. On the other hand, training, networking, motivational activities are the non-financial ISs. The support supplied by the institutions for the development of WEs is evaluated in the study and a gap between the supply and demand is assessed. Most organizations supporting WEs are engaged in short-term financial targets, which largely have halted the expected growth of women entrepreneurship in Bangladesh. It is also found that entrepreneurs who have been supported by both financial and non-financial services with a better position in the market compared to WEs who lacked those supports.

The study actually identifies the factors affecting WED and constraints relating to market access to WEs such as social, cultural, technological and financial barriers to suggest ways to overcome the same. Finally, after identification of existing gaps and contradictions between the performance in reality and the expected standard and scrutinizing the support mechanisms an assessment for the policy actions for WED is made aiming to ensure adequate and appropriate support for WEs.

Development of Women Entrepreneurs in Selected Businesses