Development of Women Entrepreneurs in Selected Businesses: A Study on Institutional Supports

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.