Abstract
Globally, the rate of women entrepreneurship has been growing at more than 10% each year. In fact, women have started to open their own business. Women entrepreneurs create job for themselves as well as for others too. Women in India are gaining importance in the era of economic, liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. The institutional policy and framework for developing entrepreneurial skills and providing training and education to the women have opened the door for economic development, as well as in empowering the women. One can see a plethora of successful women entrepreneurs successfully venturing in India both in social as well as economic fields. There are number of schemes started by government of India to uplift women. Such schemes are such as National Skill Development Policy, Mudra Yojna Schemes, National Skill Development Mission, Mahila Udyam Nidhi Scheme, Stree Shakti Package, Annapurna Scheme and many more.
Women entrepreneurship can be regarded as one of the most important tools to empower women in India. Still the women face gender base problem in starting and growing their venture. This article generally explores the motivational and driving factors that help women entrepreneurs to venture in India. Random sampling techniques have been used on 80 women entrepreneurs while conducting the research. The researcher has used Pearson correlations and Regression Analysis for testing the hypothesis. The overall result of this article depicts that there is a significant effect of pull motivation factors and marginal effect of push motivational factors on women entrepreneurs who are venturing their business in India.
Introduction
As per the report given by United Nation Development Programme, nearly one billion people are living on less than US$1 a day, of which at least 70% are women. An entrepreneur is a person who creates a new business, bear risks and enjoy most of the rewards and return. An entrepreneur can be seen as a creative and innovative person, who generates new ideas of starting a venture or These are the individuals who have the skills and initiatives necessary to anticipate current and future needs and bring good new ideas to market. business. They play a significant role in developing an economy. Encouraging women entrepreneurs is very essential as they have lot of potential to bring prosperity in the world. Women entrepreneurs can be classified as partner entrepreneurs, inheritance entrepreneurs, and self- entrepreneurs.
Right from the beginning, man’s endeavour has been for the development and upliftment of the society. In the recent times, it has been observed that most important factor contributing to the development of the society has been industrialisation. The main purpose of all the policies and programme is on the development of new entrepreneurs or entrepreneurship. In many developing economies as it is not possible to increase the industrial productivity and employment opportunity at that rate as that of population growth, the people of those developing countries mainly depends on agricultural sector for their livelihood. All over the world entrepreneurs have been considered instrumental in initiating and sustaining socio-economic development. Aphoristically, the entrepreneurs, in the modern sense can be said as self-starters and doors of a business that have built and organised their own organisations. The emergence of women on the economic scene as an entrepreneur is an important development in the emancipation of women and securing them a place in the society, which they truly deserved. The hidden entrepreneurial talents of women have been gradually increasing with the growing sensitivity to the role and economic status in the society.
In the last half century one has witnessed a very mere change for women as income earners for their family. Many developing and developed countries are coming forward to promote women entrepreneurs in their country. In India, many policies and programme has been formed for the upliftment and growth of women. The programmes such as Start-Up India, Support to Training and Employment Program for Women, Rashtriya Mahila Kosh, National Mission Empowerment for Women and Self Employed Women’s Association have been formed for the development and upliftment of women in India. As per the report released by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, through 6th Economic Census, women constitute around 14% of the total entrepreneurship, that is, 8.05 million out of the total 58.5 million entrepreneurs, noted the Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu. Out of this, 2.76 million women constituting 13.3% of women entrepreneurs work in agriculture sector whereas 5.29 million women constituting more than 65% work in non-agriculture sector. The average employment in women-owned enterprises is meagre 1.67. As per the recent World Bank report, it has been seen that women entrepreneurs or women employers mostly hire women as their employee. This may be due to the type of business they are running such as beauty salon, tailoring business, homemade item business and handicrafts. Such women-owned business or firm requires meagre 1 to 2 employees per business and this may be the reason for less employment in women-owned enterprises.
Despite the increasing importance of women entrepreneurship in creating various job opportunities of millions of people, and government’s efforts to create, develop quality, resilient, and successful entrepreneurship, and to bring about entrepreneurial culture among Indian women, as well as motivate these Indian women of becoming entrepreneurs. The research work done earlier depicts that entrepreneurial intentions to start business and the decisions that occur before the start-up shape the subsequent goals, strategies and structure the new business. As business will neither start up nor will it get success, so it has become important to improve our understanding of motivational factors that are associated with the new venture creation in a country like that of India, where government is concerned to grow, nurture, promote and cultivate enterprising culture among Indian women. It is evident in India that there exists lack of empirical research work. Its main objective is to explore the motivational factors of women entrepreneurs as these factors bears influence on their willingness to venture into business.
Objectives of the Study
The main purpose or objective of this article is to explore the effects of motivational factors on women entrepreneurship venturing in India.
Factors Responsible for Women Entrepreneurship
Push and Pull Factors
The word ‘Push’ means necessities, where women feel that the income of their family is not enough to meet their basic requirements, they are into the role of sole bread earner, and they are not able to find a suitable job for themselves. These are the factors which are generally more significant for women than men. Pull clearly signifies being drawn towards something which is attractive.
Some Push factors would include like death of main bread earner of the family which would consequently generates a need to earn livelihood for the women in the family. Other reason may be separation of women from their husband. Similar to this reason may be health of primary bread earner of the family that would force women to get a job for her for fulfilling the basic needs of her family and meet necessary expenses.
On the other hand, ‘Pull’ factors would include: Financial independence which is the main end result of profits generated out of business to a great extent pulls women towards entrepreneurship. Idea to make use of existing education, talents and skills as well as simultaneously keeping oneself busy can also be the reason for women to get attracted towards entrepreneurship. Employment generation and helping others in the society to gain economic empowerment can also be regarded as pull factor that leads to economic upgradation in the society. It has been noted that in Indian society women have always been looking to gain higher social status for themselves through their own efforts.
Hypotheses
Based on the above factors, following hypotheses has been proposed.
H1: Significant relationship exists between pull factors of intrinsic motivation and women’s willingness to start business in India.
H2: Significant relationship exists between push factors of extrinsic motivation and women’s willingness to start business in India.
Literature Review
Pollard (2006) in their research paper titled ‘Women Entre-preneurs: How Important Are Their Perception?’ examined the relationship between women entrepreneurs’ support and success from both actual and perceptual perspectives. Women’s motivations towards entrepreneurship were strongly correlated with perceptions of success. It was finally concluded that women’s perceptions of support have a greater effect on their successful entrepreneurial business than the actual support.
Kalyani and Chandralekha (2002) in their research paper examined that the demographic variables and socio-economic conditions have a major effect on the involvement of women entrepreneurs, especially in the area of enterprise management. It has been seen that most of the women entrepreneurs do take the help of their family members in order to carry out their various works and task.
Laldinliana (2011) in his research work observed the significance of rural development, Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojna (SGSY), entrepreneurial development of Self Help Groups (SHGs), dynamics of entrepreneurship as micro enterprises and so on.
Kondal (2014) in their research paper conducted a study on women empowerment through SHGs in Gajwel Mandal of Medak District in Andhra Pradesh. The findings of the study depicts that there is a positive impact of SHG on women empowerment in Gajwel Mandal of Medak District in Andhra Pradesh.
Kent et al. (1982) in their research work concluded that entrepreneurship was a method to increase the minority and women owned ventures. During the years 1977–1981, the minority-owned ventures increased, and during the same period, women-owned ventures increased by one third.
Srivastav and Syngkon (2010) in their research study conducted in Meghalaya, found that most of the entrepreneurs were educated and at the same time they were first generation tribal entrepreneurs and more than one-fourth of them were women.
Aaijaz and Ibrahim (2013) in their research paper entitled ‘Are Women Students More Inclined Towards Entrepreneur-ship?’ revealed the importance of the emerging women entrepreneurs in creating a vibrant and dynamic economy for the nation. The Malaysian government has been activ-ely promoting women entrepreneurship towards realising Malaysia’s vision 2020. However, it was seen, not much research has been done to determine the factors influen-cing women towards entrepreneurship, particularly in Malaysia. The literature suggests that psychological, social and educational institute’s approaches are widely used to explore and analyse the relationship between the influence of wom-en’s individual characteristics, internal motivation, parental influence and their business management acumen, business interest and willingness, goals and motives, networking and entrepreneurial orientation and inclination.
Research Methodology
A well-structured questionnaire was developed to collect the information from women entrepreneurs in the northern part of the country. Questionnaires were distributed to the respondents by hand to the women-owned micro and small businesses. Information was collected regarding the biological information of the participating women entrepreneurs and motivational factors for starting their businesses. The questionnaire included tested items from earlier research on motivation and start-ups. The questionnaire comprises of three sections, the first part holds a set of nine items to measure intrinsic (Pull) motivation to venture creation. The Five-point Likert Scale was used to measure success. A typical item was ‘I need to become independent’. Cronbach’s alpha of the items was 0.68. The second section consists of seven items to measure extrinsic (push) factors considered to be responsible for the creation of the business. A typical item was ‘I do not have job’. Cronbach’s alpha of the items was 0.70. The third section consists of five items to measure the intention to venture creation. A typical item was ‘I am determined to start a business in the near future’. Cronbach’s alpha of the items was 0.69. The last part of the questionnaire was related to collecting information regarding biological information of the respondents.
Data Collection and Sampling
To fulfil the objectives of this article a sample of 80 respondents (entrepreneurs) were chosen randomly. These respondents (entrepreneurs) were surveyed to investigate into the factors that motivate these women entrepreneurs to become an entrepreneur. The study was conducted in the northern part of Uttar Pradesh, one of the states in India. The target population of this study was micro and small women-owned business.
Data Analysis
The data collected was statistically analysed with the help of SPSS software. Data analysis followed a correlation design. The main objective of using correlation design is to investigate or to find out, up to what extent variation in one factor correspond with variations in one or more factors based on correlation coefficients. The correlation co-efficient measurement was used to find out the relationship between the intention to venture and independent variables (Push and Pull factors of motivation). Hypotheses were tested to analyse and find out the direct effects of independent variables on women intention of becoming entrepreneurs, controlling for demographic variables. For demographic variables, frequency tables were used for analysis purpose.
Regression Model
Y = ∂ +β1χ1 +β2χ2 +ε Y = Dependent variable (entrepreneurship intention) ∂ = Constant β1 = Beta coefficient for independent variable pull motivation variable χ1 = Pull motivation β2 = Beta coefficient for push motivation χ2 = Push motivation variable ε = Error term
Analysis and Findings
Demographical Factors of Respondents (Women Entrepreneurs)
Demographical information of women entrepreneurs participating in owned venture was obtained including their age, education, marital status and work experience. Table 1 shows demographical factors of the respondents.
Demographical Factors of Respondents (Women Entrepreneurs).
Table 1 shows that majority of women entrepreneurs are well educated, nearly 30% of women entrepreneurs are graduation degree holders and 41% of these are holding diploma degree or certificate course; a total of 71% hold a good academic knowledge. The data also shows women entrepreneurs are relatively experienced, educated and young. One might argue that educated people are mostly creative and innovative and look for something unique to fill their need or want. It has been observed that educated and experienced women are more interested in becoming entrepreneurs than those of inexperienced and non-educated women. Most of the women are in age group of 25–45 and support the contention that the people between age group of 25 and 45 are most likely to be inclined towards entrepreneurial activity.
Table 2 depicts that at least 89% of women are doing their business as a sole proprietor and only 11% as a partnership, and nearly 62% of women entrepreneurs are engaged in retail business with few engaged in other sectors such as food, services, and agriculture and herbal products. The data also depicts the size of the business owned and managed by women entrepreneurs.
Results of the Structure of the Participating Family Business.
Table 3 shows the results of start-up information of respondents. The result shows that nearly 75 percentage of respondents are using their personal saving to start their business, while some respondents have borrowed from their relatives and friends to start their business.
Results Showing Business Start-up Information.
Correlation and Regression Analysis
Table 4 presents correlation coefficients and other descriptive statistics for all variables assessed in this study and inter-correlations among the variables.
Table 4 depicts that while both pull (r = 0.484) and push (r = 0.278) motivation are positively correlated with women entrepreneurial intention, pull factors of motivation posit a stronger correlation with entrepreneurial intention than push factors of motivation.
Descriptive Statistics and Inter-Correlations Among all Variables.
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two tailed).
Regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between two independent variables (see Table 5) and entrepreneurial intention. This was aimed at determining the highest influence factor toward entrepreneurial intention and also at testing the study model. Table 5 shows the summary of results.
From Table 5, it can be seen that pull motivation (p < .05) affected intention in a positive direction and has more impact on women becoming entrepreneurs, as evidenced by the highest T and Beta score and push factors of motivation are not statistically significant (p > .05).
Coefficients of Determination Between Dependent Variables and Independent Variable.
Adjusted R-square for this model is 0.335, which shows that 33.5% of the changes in the dependent are explained by the independent variables. Altogether independent variables explained 33.5% of the variation.
Discussion
The main structure of this study lies in the fact that both pull and push factors of motivation is evolved around the women entrepreneurship studies. The research study clearly supports H1. Many research studies conducted in past also support the fact that majority of women entrepreneurs in Uttar Pradesh are drawn to entrepreneurship by pull factors. This is also in conformity with many studies. As many researchers such as Hisrichand O’Brien, Benzing and Hung have found pull factors more prevalent than push factors of motivation.
The research study also reveals that there is a less relationship between push factors of motivation and entrepreneurial intention and also the relationship was not found to be statistically significant. This reveals that motivating factors or forces are not directly related to material needs and is inconsistent with the findings of Hisrichand and Brush.
Implication of the Study
Motivation is one of the main implications of this study which shows that it is a key to start and get success in business. One must be motivated strongly and must have desire and interest to start and lead his or her business. Other implication of this study is education, which is very essential for entrepreneurial development. It can be seen that educated people are more inclined in becoming entrepreneurs.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.