Meeting the Challenge of Entrepreneurship with Social Media: The Case of Tunisian Women Entrepreneurs

Introduction

This study bears on two main facts. The first is that the interest in the study of digital entrepreneurship continues to increase, which is manifested by an increase in the number of papers on the subject (Sahut et al., 2019; Satalkina & Steiner, 2020, Zaheer et al., 2019) as well as the growing use of digital technology in business (Guthrie, 2014; Neumeyer et al., 2020; Soltanifar et al., 2021). Researchers have emphasised the importance of digital entrepreneurship in business development and job creation in developing countries (Javalgi et al., 2012; Nambisan et al., 2019; Soluk et al., 2021). In fact, digital entrepreneurship brings changes in entrepreneurial processes (Nambisan, 2017), dissolves boundaries (Nambisan, 2017) and enables entrepreneurs to establish direct links with their customers, suppliers, distributors and even to contract new partners (Elia et al., 2020). Digital entrepreneurship is the intersection of digital technologies and entrepreneurship (Nambisan, 2017). It is a specific area within entrepreneurship where digital technologies play a key role in entrepreneurial pursuits (Nambisan, 2017).

The second fact is that women are underrepresented within the population of entrepreneurs. Although policymakers set up programmes to support women entrepreneurship (OECD, 2014, 2017), these programmes should recognise that women are a heterogeneous group with many differences in their motivations, intentions and projects. The efforts made by these women to forge their path and find their place in the entrepreneurial world are also to be taken into consideration.

The purpose of this article is indeed to provide an overview of the efforts made by women to meet the challenge of entrepreneurship by seizing the opportunity of digital entrepreneurship and using social media. This choice is very well grounded and responds to women’s common objectives, yet some objectives remain specific to certain women in certain contexts.

The literature review, real life facts, and the qualitative study that we carried out with Tunisian women entrepreneurs revealed that the use of social media has enabled these women to overcome the obstacles of entrepreneurship and to take up the challenge of finding a place and establishing themselves, but in digital entrepreneurship. In fact, according to the Digital 2020 Report for Tunisia, ¹ of the 7.55 million internet users in this country in January 2020, 7.30 million use social media. This means an increase by 473,000 (+6.9%) between April 2019 and January 2020. With a population of 11.76 million, this wide access to social media offered a particularly interesting context for our study. According to the same report, women represent 50% of the total population in Tunisia. Women represent 44.9% of Facebook users, 51.6% of Instagram, 74.5% of Snapchat, 29.6% of Twitter and 38% of LinkedIn users. They have more Facebook activity frequency compared to men (3 Facebook pages Likes by females versus 2 by males; 17 posts liked in the past 30 days by females versus 14 by males; 11 comments made in the past 30 days by females versus 5 by males; 3 Facebook posts shared in the past 30 days by females versus 2 by males; 20 Facebook adverts clicked in the past 30 days by females versus 14 by males). This active participation of women pushes us to wonder about the contribution of social media to the development of women digital entrepreneurship.

Then, the aim of this article is to determine the link between women and digital entrepreneurship to understand how these women behave and to clarify the role that digitisation, and especially the use of social media, has on women entrepreneurs, a link still unclear.

Initially, we offer an overview of difficulties faced by women entrepreneurs in traditional entrepreneurship. Then, we explain the importance of digitisation for women to address the challenge of entrepreneurship. We describe the interpretivist approach taken by this study and offer insights gained from a semi-structured interviews of eight Tunisian women entrepreneurs. We conclude our study with a discussion and potential future research topics.

Difficulties Faced by Women in Traditional Entrepreneurship: Five Barriers Obstructing Women Entrepreneurship

Studies conducted about women in traditional entrepreneurship noticed that they are less involved in entrepreneurship because their success was limited by a mix of variables (Ojediran & Anderson, 2020; Rudhumbu et al., 2020). As women represent 49.6% of the whole world population, this implies that a major portion of human resources is underused, which blocks the socio-economic growth of world economy and creates a gender gap in this sphere (Ahammad & Moudud-Ul-Huq, 2013). The literature review enumerated five barriers faced by women and that obstruct the setting up and maintaining of their businesses, especially in developing economies known by emerging markets where people have lower levels of education and little discretionary income or resources to invest in a business (Silcox, 2013). In some of these countries, such as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which are socially, politically and religiously dominated by men (Al-Alak & Al-Haddad, 2010), women choose to start their own businesses because of the necessity for an income source and they find themselves forced to face these barriers (Kelley et al., 2013).

The first barrier relates to the gender role assumption made by culture and society. In fact, the dominant social attitude is that women are responsible for the household while men should be responsible for running businesses (Hattab, 2012). This traditional belief systems characterising countries which are socially, politically and religiously dominated by men (Al-Alak and Al-Haddad, 2010) suggest the subordination of women to men which deprives women of opportunities for leadership roles, self-confidence and self-expression (Kapinga & Montero, 2017; Rudhumbu et al., 2020). As a result, negative ramifications to women when they want to stand on their own in businesses are perceived (Athanne, 2011; Mwobobia, 2012; Rudhumbu et al., 2020).

The second barrier relates to lack of entrepreneurial knowledge and technical skills (Amalu & Okafor, 2010; Magesa et al., 2013), as women have less experience in self-employment (Collins-Dodd et al., 2004; Marlow & Carter, 2004) and fewer opportunities in management positions. As a result, they lack management experience and skills that can be useful in entrepreneurship (Boden & Nucci, 2000).

The third one highlights the greater difficulty faced by women accessing finance compared to men. In fact, many studies conducted in the MENA region showed that women entrepreneurs face obstacles in obtaining financing (Hattab, 2012) or in accessing financial services (Katta & Hussien, 2009). Studies showed that since most women have lower education levels, it is difficult for them to know about sources of funding available and how to access such funding through complete business plans (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2019; International Center for Research on Women, 2019; Rudhumbu et al., 2020). A study conducted in five countries in the MENA region (Lebanon, Bahrain, UAE, Tunisia and Jordan) revealed that women entrepreneurs lacked access to financing from financial institutions (IFC, 2007). In their study, Adly and Khatib (2014) reported that Egyptian women had a difficult time accessing finance from formal institutions such as banks. Thus, women entrepreneurs face a lack of capital and find themselves forced to use their own savings or family loans to finance the starting and support of their businesses (El Hamidi & Baslevent, 2010; Rudhumbu et al., 2020).

The fourth barrier relates to the smaller and less effective entrepreneurial networks developed by women entrepreneurs. This is explained by the fact that women’s networks mainly consist of family members, friends and educators who are not relevant to conduct business (OECD/EU, 2015). In fact, women entrepreneurs always want to network with people they know and trust and would rather not explore new territories. This limits their networks (Amalu & Okafor, 2010; Rudhumbu et al., 2020). It is also explained by the fact that women are less likely to have interacted with individuals who control critical resources as they do not have enough prior employment experience or they suffer from sociocultural barriers (Brush et al., 2004).

This leads us to the last barrier represented by family commitment which can discourage female labour market participation, including entrepreneurship (OECD, 2017). Women face the challenge of the balance between work and home commitments (Rudhumbu et al., 2020) and women lack time due to double accountability to acquire revenue and satisfy family responsibilities (Chandwani & Verma, 2020). In fact, success of women entrepreneurs is often compromised by their attempts to allocate time for balancing work and home commitments (Behara & Niranjan, 2012; Ihugba & Njoku, 2014; Rudhumbu et al., 2020). Women are not able to reconcile family obligations with work outside the family, and by the absence of consideration of the specific duties and needs of women (maternity, taking care of children and of elders) (OECD, 2017).

Women in Digital Entrepreneurship: Addressing the Challenge

When it is about digital entrepreneurship, the issue becomes different, and women occupy a privileged position.

For a while, changes brought by digital technologies feed off traditional entrepreneurship. Then, the term digital entrepreneurship is coined to describe the intersection and the association between entrepreneurship and digital technologies. A big change has occurred in entrepreneurship as digital technologies dissolved traditional boundaries and shifted the agency of entrepreneurship (Nambisan, 2017; Nambisan et al., 2019).

Digital technologies’ effects manifest themselves in different forms including products (Lyytinen et al., 2016), product or service platforms (Tiwana et al., 2010), infrastructure tools or systems (Aldrich, 2014), and digital applications, components, or media content (Ekbia, 2009).

Nowadays, businesses should go through five major trends transforming individuals, organisations, and society, and shaping the digital future, which is mobile computing, cloud computing, social media, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data (Soltanifar et al., 2021; Valacich & Schneider, 2018). In fact, a significant shift towards the use of mobile technologies for all transactions, going from searching for product information and comparing alternatives all the way through to completing the purchase, is also observed (Soltanifar et al., 2021). In her study, Nambisan (2017) grouped the different forms of digital technologies into three main categories that can assume different roles and have different implications for entrepreneurship: digital artefacts, digital platforms and digital infrastructure.

In our case, we are interested in digital infrastructures which are digital technology tools and systems that offer communication, collaboration and/or computing capabilities to support innovation and entrepreneurship (Nambisan, 2017). They are the most used digital technology tools and they have led to the democratisation of entrepreneurship (Aldrich, 2014). Social media is clearly part of this digital infrastructure, and it is one of the most technology tools used by women in digital entrepreneurship. Originally used to enable family and friends to connect, the use of social media has expanded beyond allowing companies to operate or advertise products through their own social media pages (Soltanifar et al., 2021). The proliferation of social media platforms has allowed entrepreneurs to better connect with their customers and to engage them in new product development and product launches (Aral et al., 2013; Roberts et al., 2017).

Digital technology development and particularly the advent of social media has undoubtedly opened windows for new opportunities for women (Mukolwe & Korir, 2016), and there are signs that social media use is full of benefits to women entrepreneurs, especially in low-income countries (Benninger et al., 2016). In fact, in their study, Chandwani and Verma (2020) found that digital technological advances contributed greatly to engaging women in digital entrepreneurship. The authors explained that digital presence enabled women to overcome some of the explicit limitations that are forced on them and reduced the obstacles of both time and space. Ughetto et al. (2019) explained that women are taking advantage of digital developments in terms of increased work flexibility and reduced mobility constraints.

Hence, the use of social media has changed the nature and the structure of the business environment for women especially by improving communication technologies (Iscan & Naktiyok, 2005). This new environment increased the number of women in the workplace and the flexible work arrangements provided by this environment helped them to become more productive and satisfied with their jobs by reducing their stress (Hill et al., 2008). Melissa et al. (2019) confirmed that social media entrepreneurship offered many advantages to women going from giving them the possibility to be financially independent to encouraging them to be more self-actualised. Consequently, women seem to dominate the online business and this dominance resulted ‘in the great online influence which enables them to have enormous power in influencing online opinions that drives e-commerce’ (Ukpere et al., 2014, p. 553). In fact, ‘many E-commerce areas have observed women entrepreneurs gaining a strong grip, and women seem to be more likely to embrace social media than men’ (Ukpere et al., 2014, p. 554).

Methodology

The literature review revealed that women in digital entrepreneurship met the challenge of entrepreneurship and set up and maintained their businesses by taking advantage of social media. Therefore, these women are mainly conducting small businesses in the informal market.

On the basis of a study carried out on women digital entrepreneurs, seeking to reveal what goals, strategies and methods these micro-sized female entrepreneurs undertake to meet the challenge of entrepreneurship with the use of social media, we are going to compare our findings to those found in other studies conducted in other different MENA countries. These countries present features similar to the Tunisian context because of proximity at different levels (geographic, religious, social and economic). The main goal here is to explain how the use of social media enabled these women to overcome the barriers of traditional entrepreneurship.

Data Analysis

The English-language transcriptions were coded by the author using qualitative data analysis software (NVivo). An open coding process generated first-order codes. By using a constant process of comparison between the transcribed interviews (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), conceptual patterns were detected and organised into first-order categories. Through in-depth analysis of the findings, codes were then aggregated into second-order themes and organised under first-order categories. The findings, including illustrative verbatims, are summarised in Table 1.

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Table 1.

Categories, Themes, and Verbatim.

First-Order Categories and Second-Order Themes	Verbatim
1. Reasons to start a business
a. Passion b. Financial motivation c. Desire to fill time d. Seize an opportunity	a1. Launching my business in the food industry is the fruit of a passion for this field from childhood. a2. It is the passion and interest in ecology that led me to choose this field of activity. a3. Sometimes we get exhausted and think about dropping out but then we can’t because it’s a passion. a4. I make bracelets out of passion. a5. We do what we do out of passion. a6. The biggest motivation is financial independence in addition to passion. a7. The passion and love for entrepreneurship and the joy of being successful is contagious. a8. I love what I do, and I master it. b1. Financial motivation also has something to do with it. b2. Women should have financial autonomy. b3. Now I am totally independent financially. b4. It is a small project that has helped us to have some financial autonomy. b5. The biggest motivation is financial independence in addition to passion. b6. I am looking for financial autonomy. b7. What motivated us was the desire to earn pocket money. c1. Distance learning in Covid context gave me a lot of free time and I wanted to take advantage of it. c2. Time was decisive in my choice. I had a lot of free time at the start, and I had a lot of freedom. c3. I wanted to take advantage of my free time. c4. The lockdown allowed us to have free time that we must know how to well use it. d1. It was an opportunity to be seized. d2. When the opportunity was here, I wanted to seize it. d3. I also saw the opportunity.
2. Culture, family and gender assumptions
e. Absence of cultural issues f. Family and friends’ support g. Gender assumptions	e1. We have never encountered a problem with the culture or mentalities regarding our engagement into entrepreneurship. e2. I never suffered from mentality issues about starting the project, neither with my family nor even with my fiancé. e3. I have never felt a problem with the mentality or the culture when it comes to starting a business. f1. My family and my friends were really a support to me. f2. With the encouragement of my family and friends, I decided to go for it. f3. There are even members of my family who brought me equipment from abroad. f4. My friends and family have helped me with their encouragement. They also shared my posts. f5. It was the positive feedback from my family and friends that kept me going. f6. My first clients were friends and family. f7. At the start, my family helped me financially. f8. Family and friends liked the idea and helped us get our page started. g1. In a field such as the food industry where engineers and technicians are men, it is still difficult to accept that a woman takes responsibility (tiring work, doing night shifts, etc.). So, I felt gender discriminated. g2. My partner, who is a man, considers that a woman can be a full partner. g3. In my circle of connections, we encourage each other regardless of gender and push each other to realise our ideas. g4. I have not encountered any problems being a woman entrepreneur, neither with my family, nor with my entourage, nor even with clients. g5. I have never suffered from segregation. On the contrary, I work mainly with men, and my communication skills have allowed me to gain their support. I try to keep good relationships with them to win them.
3. Developing entrepreneurship skills
h. Learning from others’ experiences i. Learning by doing j. Learning from mistakes k. Developing entrepreneurship skills through training courses	h1. Following pages of people who already launched their business in digital entrepreneurship and that are open access helped me to discover how these people work and grow their businesses and to learn from their experience. h2. I am part of a group where internet users from different countries of the world discuss how to develop their skills and share their experiences which allowed me to learn a lot about entrepreneurship. h3. I followed women digital entrepreneurs and I learned from their experiences. h4. I have also watched videos of women who have entered the entrepreneurial world. These women encourage the use of digitisation and engagement into the world of entrepreneurship. h5. I started to follow Instagrammers to understand the logic of this new market. i1. I learned a lot by doing i2. Practice teaches you too i3. We have learned from practice that reactions are not necessarily potential sales and that among those who have reacted; you have to find those who have a budget to purchase the product. i4. Practice has taught me that I don’t have to stress, I must relax and eventually interested people will be waiting for you. i5. Little by little, day by day, I learned through practice and now I manage everything. i6. All of this I did not know before, I learned it by doing. i7. Practice has taught me to recognise periods of increased sales (New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day) and periods of stagnation. i8. The decline in sales initially discouraged me, but through practice I learned that in trading there are times of fluctuations i10. Practice has taught me to keep my cool and not to rush and respond after thinking because people are different and have different characters. i11. There are a lot of good things that I learned by doing, not studying. i12. Hence the importance of on-the-job learning. There are tips that can only be learned through practice and being close to the field. j1. I told myself that this will be an opportunity to learn from our mistakes, so that the day I decide to embark on a larger project, I will know the market better, and I will make fewer mistakes. j2. We made mistakes and we learned as a result. j3. It was an opportunity for me to test the market, to learn from my mistakes since mistakes are not fatal. j4. It allowed us to learn entrepreneurship and gave us an opportunity to learn from our mistakes. j5. A first disappointment that allowed us to learn to expect anything and prepare alternative plans if the first plan does not work out. j6. We made mistakes and we learned as a result. We adapted our actions and our plans accordingly and it was not fatal because the investment was not important. j7. Even on a psychological level, the first mistake upsets you, but over time you get used to it. You become stronger and you face problems with more confidence. k1. I contacted public organisations that offer free entrepreneurship training. k2. I took several training courses and started to develop my entrepreneurial skills. k3. I started taking online entrepreneurship courses to develop my skills and know how to choose the right product and how to make the idea come true.
4. Having access to finance
l. Family financial support m. Exploitation of existing resources n. Take advantage of the free platform o. Use the savings p. Reduce workloads by leveraging their skills	l1. I started with minimal amount of money given to me by my father. l2. I then spoke again with my mother who encouraged me and gave me the money I started with. l3. I started with some money given to me by my mother. l4. I borrowed from my parents m1. I make my products at home. m2. Faced with limited financial resources, I chose to start with existing resources. m3. The raw material was not expensive. m4. We used the means on board m5. At first, I started with cheap tools. m6. I started out with no money, my phone, my computer, and free software on the internet. m7. For the dishes I present, I use the ingredients we have at home. m8. We started by selling our clothes that we no longer wear and little by little with the money we earned we started to buy clothes to resell them. m9. The limited budget has taught us to optimise the use of resources and find resources at a better price. n1. Facebook allows me free advertising using photos and recipes that quickly hit the target. n2. The fact that the platform is free is also a good reason and having access to a large audience allows me to earn more than when I create a physical point of sale, which may require some expense. n3. I used Facebook because it’s free and it gives me easy access to clients. n4. What has helped us financially is that the platform is free. n5. Social media helps you build awareness of your brand with limited resources. o1. We started with our savings. o2. We started with the savings we made from pocket money. p1. We used our skills. p2. My partner has skills in editing projects, he took great photos. I have used my skills in marketing to connect with customers to sell them our products and to retain them. p3. Initially, I worked alone and made the products myself. p4. I started making prototypes that were loved by my mother and friends. p5. My friend and I make the bracelets ourselves
5. Role models, raising awareness about the potential of entrepreneurship and increasing women’s motivation for entrepreneurship
q. Being exposed to women entrepreneurs in the digital field r. Acting as a role model for other women	q1. I saw my friend who created her project on social media and saw how active she is in it. She inspired me to get started. q2. I was inspired by my cousin when she was 16, she is younger than me and she is very active. q3. I once listened to a woman entrepreneur in the digital field talk about her experience and I discovered a real fighter. She really inspired me and encouraged me to strengthen my project. q4. I was also inspired by men and women who simplify scientific information and convey it to the public; I wanted to do the same in the field of nutrition. q5. For the photos, we were initially inspired by an Italian entrepreneur, and then we developed our concept. A famous Instagrammer inspired me with her way of communicating and choosing her partners. q6. On social media, there are several models of women digital entrepreneurs. I check their pages to see how they work, and they encouraged me to continue with my project. r1. I have a friend who was inspired by my digital success, and she chose to embark on her own project. r2. A friend of mine who was always listening to me even decided to embark on a project and I told her that I am there for her. I helped her and showed her the way to the suppliers. r3. Many of my friends [women] have been inspired by our experience and I have encouraged them. I even shared my experience with them even though we have the same activity. r4. There are girls around us who were inspired by our projects and started their businesses. r5. After being on the radio, I was told that I inspired several girls to be like me. r6. In the group I belong to, I encouraged a girl to get started and I even shared my experience with her. I always plan to share what I have learned in the digital world.
6. Building entrepreneurial networks
s. Naturally sociable t. Look for relevant networks	s1. I am naturally someone who likes to build relationships with others and expand my professional network. s2. Listening to people, responding to their needs, and building relationships are very spontaneous to me. I have no problem getting in touch with them. On the contrary, I like working with clients very much. s3. I like to expand my network. s4. I am someone who enjoys having friends and expanding my professional network. I like to communicate with new people, we communicate well by nature, my partner and me. s5. I like to expand my network and increase my community. s6. I like expanding my network. I am outgoing and enjoy socialising. Besides, I have participated a lot in activities within associations and I like the contact. I feel that I am good in sharing. s7. In my nature, I adapt myself with my interlocutor, and I put everyone at ease. t1. I know that the more I expand my professional network, the more I can promote my product and sell it abroad. t2. On social media, I look for my target, the people who are really interested in my service. I am looking for the quality of the subscriptions and not the quantity. t3. We don’t need many followers as much as we need quality and that they are genuinely interested in our product.
7. Benefits of social media
u. Reducing costs v. Access to customers w. Visibility and notoriety x. Time flexibility y. Partnership z. Learning from customers	u1. Launching into social media reduces investments and costs. u2. Everything is done on social medias. Even sponsorship is not really expensive, and you don’t have to do it all the time. You don’t have to deliver the goods, there are companies that do it for you and it is the customer who pays. u3. The fact that the platform is free is also a good reason to launch my business. u4. Having access to a large audience allows me to earn more than when I create a physical point of sale, which may require some expense. v1. Social media allows you to reach customers easily without paying advertising fees. v2. On social media, the customer can contact me directly by sending a message, without having to know my contact details, and I can respond quickly. It also allows me to get to know new people. v3. Launch my business on Facebook is because it is the closest social media to the customer. v4. My proximity to the consumer on Facebook allowed me to define their needs; they also suggest new products to me. I am in the test and market discovery phase to be able to build my profile on a solid basis. v5. Social media is my communication channel. It’s the bridge that allows me to reach my target, especially during containment. v6. Social media allows us to attract new customers and expand the market. w1. Social media gave me visibility for my brand and gave me some notoriety. w2. Social media allows you visibility, but you must define the image you want to communicate of your project and product to your customers. w3. Social media has helped me grow quickly and build notoriety. w4. Social media gives us visibility. x1. Time played an important role in getting into digital because it gives me more flexibility and allows me to overcome the constraints of time and space. x2. I can respond to clients even at midnight or during periods of lockdown or curfew or on weekends. Social media allows me to present my offer without moving or having to access a physical location. x3. The flexibility of time in digital technology has helped me manage my project. I post anytime and people are interacting. I manage my time at my convenience. x4. Flexibility of time is a good opportunity. We don’t work out of obligation. We do it when we want to. We take a lot of photos when we are available, and we distribute them at our own pace. x5. The flexibility of time was one of the factors that encouraged me. Work when you want or can at any time. It allows me to find the balance between my studies and my business. y1. Facebook also allowed me to make partnerships. Indeed, a company in my field of activity contacted me and offered to work in partnership by presenting our products together at the food fair. y2. Social media first allowed me to know my Turkish partner and gave me the opportunity to work with him remotely. y3. I have also been contacted by a delivery company which wants to do the delivery for me. y4. Social media has enabled me to have partnership proposals with, for example, ‘the little Souk’ which sells 100% Tunisian artisan products. The owner contacted me, and I worked with him. y5. On my professional page, I receive proposals for partnerships with clubs, or radio channels. Besides, I have a spot with a radio station every Tuesday morning. y6. Recently, a seamstress who makes Berber clothes visited our page and bought one of our items. She liked the page and offered to come to a restaurant she owns with her fiancé and do a ‘clearance sale’ in their restaurant. z1. Customers’ feedbacks allow us to improve or diversify our offer. They suggest we make other models and other products. z2. Being close to the market and adjusting your offer based on these reactions is the key to success. z3. You learn a lot from customers. z4. Customers inspire us. z5. This proximity to customers, that social media gives, is very important because you learn from them. z6. Sometimes clients ask me to make them a specific model.
8. Women digital entrepreneurs’ strengths
aa. Empathy bb. Flexibility and adaptability	aa1. I pay attention to unsatisfied customers, particularly since I am not the one doing the delivery and sometimes the delivery people do not behave properly. aa2. After delivering the product, I send a message to make sure my customers have received the order and I ask them for their levels of satisfaction. aa3. If I feel the customer wants to talk more, I always listen to them. I behave with them spontaneously. aa4. My clients are almost my age and I treat them like friends. They email me anytime and I reply to them all. I do this spontaneously and I feel that it is my responsibility to answer and advise them. aa5. I pay too much attention to customer requirements; I am not bored, and I try to satisfy everyone. aa6. When we deliver the order to our customers, we leave them a note with our logo; they love it, thank us and place new orders. aa7. I pay attention to the opinions of my customers; I involve them in the design of the bouquets, and I show them the steps. bb1. We intend to consider their proposals for the future developments of our company. bb2. Over time, we become more flexible. bb3. Frequent contact with clients even allowed me to anticipate their questions and prepare answers. The customers are of different types, I was able to segment them and prepare the elements of suitable responses to convince them. bb3. I always try to meet the customer’s requirements and if they are unhappy, I give them a gift to satisfy them. bb4. I am very flexible, and I adapt too much to my target. bb5. We never say no to the customer, and we spend a lot of time looking to find something that meets their expectations, but we never say no we don’t have it.
9. Difficulties faced by women in digital entrepreneurship
cc. Time management and commitment dd. Limited funding and technical issues ee. Adaptation to different platforms ff. Transparency and risk of being imitated	cc1. But when the number of customers has increased, I can’t find the time to do everything. cc2. The biggest problem is the engagement and continuous dissemination of stories and posts and the creation and maintenance of your online store. cc3. The online store requires you to publish a story every 2 hours with the photo of your product to reach a maximum of users. cc4. Managing time, tasks and customer requirements is no easy task. cc5. Another difficulty is the obligation to share a story every 24 hours. Sometimes I find myself having to do it even if I am not in the mood. cc6. Engagement with the target takes me a long time. People get used to it and demand the content they are used to. dd1. The main difficulty I encountered was when my page started to interest people and the number of subscribers increased, I found myself unable to access my page and respond to comments. Facebook blocked me because I didn’t do any sponsorship. dd2. Lately, someone reported me, and it kept the story from being visible, but it was only once. ee1. Understanding the logic of each platform and acting on it is another challenge. ff1. There is also the risk that people may imitate you. ff2. The main problem in the digital world is the transparency that allows competitors to see what you are doing, and they can imitate you.
10. Solutions adopted
gg. Hire someone to help with production hh. Look for alternative solutions ii. Working on her profile jj. Innovating and having close relationship with customers and partners	gg1. I recruited a woman to work with me in product preparation and to be able to meet the increased demand. gg2. I hired someone to help me make the candles. hh1. I discovered a Facebook app called ‘follow business’ where there is no blockage. I downloaded the app and used it to respond to comments while waiting for the page to unblock. hh2. As for posting a story every two hours on Instagram, we discovered a ‘Later.com’ app that does it for us. All you must do is put the photos and the text that will accompany the broadcast. hh3. It forces me to be active if only to re-share content from last year. Sometimes I anticipate and prepare content. ii1. I put things into perspective and try to see the bright side, so I have the patience and the ability to move forward. ii2. I try to rest, go out and have fun, I read a novel, I watch a series to regain my strength and keep going. ii3. We motivate each other and do what we do out of passion and never miss an opportunity to sell our products. jj1. I broke new ground and added the videos with the photos. I offer a whole outfit to show the item what it can be worn on. Imitation is not about the details that make the difference. jj2. But they only see the obvious, the product. The most important thing that is not visible is the good relationship you have with your customers and business partners.

Source: Interviews.

Findings

The eight interviewed Tunisian digital women entrepreneurs operate six types of businesses. These six types were food, clothing, fashion accessories, nutrition advice, flower decoration and candles. The most popular types of business among the interviewed women were that of fashion accessories, and clothing followed closely by the other remaining types of activities. Table 2 identifies the businesses run by the eight women in the sample group.

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Table 2.

Business Types.

Interviewee	Types of Business
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8	Food industry Fashion accessories Candles Nutrition advice Clothing Fashion accessories Clothing Flower decoration

Source: Interviews.

Ten first-order categories were derived during the data analysis process and consisted of numerous second-order themes.

Reasons to start a business.

Discussion

To help themselves overcome barriers encountered in traditional entrepreneurship, women created their own solutions in digital entrepreneurship by taking advantage of many possibilities offered by this parallel world. The main idea in this article is to understand the created solutions and to help women strengthen them instead of imposing programmes on them.

This study has firstly shown that women in the digital world do not lack motivation to start a business. They express in most cases more than motivation. Our study therefore complements the previous studies carried out by Hughes (2006) or St-Cyr et al. (2003) to define the motivating elements of these women digital entrepreneurs. Indeed, driven by their passions, these women made sure to transform them into business concepts by taking advantage of a favourable context. Most of these women have used a skill developed since their childhood to meet a need in the market. The possibilities offered by the digital world, represented mainly by social media, have enabled these women to be close to their customers, to better understand their needs and to respond to them in the best possible way.

Financial motivation is also a strong motive for these women to seek independence and empower themselves. This finding is similar to that of Beninger et al. (2016) who worked on women digital entrepreneurs in Egypt and that of Melissa et al. (2015) who were interested in this same population in Indonesia. Our results therefore support the conclusion of Keller and Mbewe (1991) on the importance of empowerment for these women to achieve self-reliance, independence and control over their lives.

Another motivation is the desire to take advantage of their free time, especially during lockdown due to COVID-19. Indeed, during this period, these women had a lot of free time which they chose to use in doing business. Our results are consistent with those of Beninger et al. (2016).

Time plays a very important role in digital entrepreneurship, especially in relation to the flexibility it gives to these women in managing their businesses or their relationships with clients. Several studies have demonstrated the importance of time flexibility for women in the decision to go into business. We can cite the studies of Beninger et al. (2016), Melissa et al. (2015), Genç and Öksüz (2015) who worked on Turkish digital women entrepreneurs and the study of Dy et al. (2016) conducted on UK women digital entrepreneurs.

These women launched their business to seize an opportunity they identified in the digital market. Opportunity recognition and exploitation has been considered as a key component in the traditional entrepreneurial world since the pioneering work of Schumpeter (1934) followed by Kirzner (1973, 1979) and Shane and Venkataramen (2000). This remains true in the world of digital entrepreneurship. Developing the capacities of these women to recognise opportunities is likely to help them get into business.

Our data offer evidence that the women did not encounter cultural issues or gender assumptions to launch their businesses. On the contrary, they were encouraged by their friends and their families on the decision or the effective launching of their businesses. This improved their self-confidence and led them to pursue the adventure despite the difficulties encountered. This finding may suggest a change in culture and in the way of seeing the role of women and men in society that needs further scrutiny.

Although these women started small businesses, their experiences allowed them to develop their entrepreneurial skills first by learning from the experience of others, hence the importance of the effect of emulation and the presence of female role models in the digital world. In fact, promoting a positive attitude through role models and ambassadors to raise awareness about the potential of entrepreneurship and to increase women’s motivation for business creation and development is very important (OECD, 2017). In our case, this effect was reached by positive representations and stories in the media, but it is recommended that these models have direct interactions with women as they can be subject of learning material and case studies used in entrepreneurship education and training programs (Bijedić et al., 2014). Such actions can help reaching and influencing potential women entrepreneurs and help shifting social attitudes towards women’s entrepreneurship (OECD, 2017).

Then the interviewed women developed their entrepreneurial skills through their own experiences. They said they learned from their mistakes. They also looked for developing their skills by pursuing training courses. These programs are very important and are likely to develop a broad set of skills required by self-employment such as risk management and opportunity recognition or business management skills (OECD, 2017). We suggest offering varied content and training methods to better meet the specificities of women entrepreneurs and the different needs inherent in the development of their business. Fielden and Hunt (2011) indicate that when programmes are women-only, they are more likely to be aware of it and more comfortable participating in them. It is also proposed that mentoring relationships between experienced and novice women entrepreneurs are developed and it is suggested that tailored business advice through women’s enterprise/entrepreneurship centres should be provided (WECs) to help them to overcome the challenges of starting a new business and stand the obstacles to sustainability and growth (OECD, 2014, 2017). The efforts made by the interviewed digital women entrepreneurs in this regard suggest that they are aware about their lack of entrepreneurial competencies and skills, yet they are working on it.

These women lack financial resources too, which led them to look for the digital world. One of the most important possibilities they took profit from this world is the possibility of reducing expenses. They also chose business areas allowing them to exploit the resources at their disposal to face lack of finance. Even if this can be a good solution for their informal small businesses, they need to find better sources of financing when they have to launch a formal one. It is recommended in this case that women develop their financial literacy and become aware of the range of financing instruments at their disposal. For example, microcredits support women entrepreneurs by improving their financial inclusion and helping them overcome market and social barriers in the financial market (Bendig et al., 2014). These loans are often packaged with financial education and business advice. Digitisation has created other forms of financing approaches including crowdfunding (OECD, 2017).

The interviewed digital women entrepreneurs showed a developed form of intelligence allowing them not only to seize opportunities but also to take advantage of their environment. In this case, the proximity of their customers which is another important possibility offered by digital entrepreneurship. In fact, increased exposure and reach to customers, suppliers and knowledge enhanced the social capital of women entrepreneurs in Tunisia via the use of social media to run their businesses. Hence, digital entrepreneurship gave them the opportunity to develop their entrepreneurial networks that provided them with several advantages such as access to resources, ideas generation, business partnership, customer’s contacts, financing, and share experiences and knowledge (OECD/EU, 2015). Thus, it is important for these women to have stronger networks because they correlate with more successful early-stage business development and they provide them positive support (Klyver & Grant, 2010).

Social media has become a privileged space where these women market and sell their products to customers across Tunisia and, for some cases, beyond. Importantly, the social capital developed helped our interviewees to acquire the necessary resources and skills and to expand their reach to diversified networks (Granovetter, 1995). Social media served as a channel for disseminating information about their offers and services (Putnam, 2000). It was very important for them to manage their business in a cost-effective way.

Our data reveal that women used a key component to meet the challenge of entrepreneurship in the digital world. It is about their empathy. Closeness to the customer, which is a double-edged sword, is apparently only successful if the person in question can understand the different expectations of customers and behave in different ways with different personalities. The empathy naturally developed in these women has been of great help to them and has enabled them to successfully manage these relationships. This finding meets the theory developed by the psychologist Baron-Cohen (2003) which indicates that ‘from a genetic and biological foundation, women are physically better “wired” (brain’s structure) for empathy than men’.

Promoting work–life balance for women was not seen as a problem for the interviewed women who are all single and have no responsibilities within their families. The latter helped them to have enough time to manage their businesses, and for some to study.

These results provide evidence that women have their own way to practice entrepreneurship and give clear support to propose training content and methods that are differentiated for women entrepreneurs to fit more their specificities. As Fielden and Hunt (2011) explained, when programmes are women-only, they are more likely to be aware of it and more comfortable participating in them.

Conclusion

Bearing on the observation that women are increasingly present in business in the digital world, our study provided evidence indicating that women have changed and want to have a privileged place in this new universe.

Having taken advantage of digitisation, including better cost management, flexibility in the use of time, having access to free training courses and direct access to customers, women digital entrepreneurs have done business in their own way.

By exploiting existing skills and developing missing ones, these women have succeeded in recognising opportunities and making good use of them.

Although they recognise that they have started in small informal businesses, they also explain that their objectives were primarily to familiarise themselves with this world of entrepreneurship, to learn by limiting investments and expenses, and to prepare themselves before embarking on larger projects.

Showing great maturity despite their youth, and strong self-confidence resulting from the encouragement of their families and friends but also experiences of failures and successes, these women recognise that empathy is a key element in their success. They are therefore ready to delegate everything except customer relationship management which they deem essential for the management of a business in the digital world.

Despite the contributions of this study, we present the results with some caution given the limited number and the specificities of the respondents. This motivates us to consider on a larger quantitative study to consolidate the importance of the factors that emerged from this study, and even to study the possible interactions between them.