Many flowers make a bouquet: A recipe for women entrepreneurs in SMEs

Karam Zaki, Fayoum UniversityFollow
Hany Shared, Shaqra UniversityFollow

Abstract

Women’s participation and activation of their role in societies are central goals among the UN’s global aims. This research accomplished the following objectives: first, expands the existing knowledge of women’s intentions and their startup desirability for small projects; second, explores the perceived outcomes; and third, develops an action plan based on the current constraints women face when leading small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) projects. Data were collected from an online questionnaire of 433 entrepreneurs based in Saudi Arabia (26.3% university staff, 23.1% project starters, 22.9% bank loan holders, 16.2% university students, and 11.5% leaders). The partial least squares path modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the collected data. Findings confirmed that women entrepreneurs’ preferences for small projects were positively influenced by their intentions, education, personality traits, and types of SME projects. Preferences for small project startups were found to have a direct psychological, social, and economic effect. Moreover, results showed the suggested relevance of the combined model in predicting the preferences of women entrepreneurs starting SMEs (explained variance = 72%). This paper’s conceptual framework contributes to current literature on women’s entrepreneurship in a leading Arab country. The authors developed an action plan to bridge the gap between women’s entrepreneurship in practice and theory. This action plan is the first exertion to help policymakers in Arab countries better control constraints encountered by women entrepreneurs.

Keywords

women entrepreneurs, SMEs, desirability, personality traits, Arab countries

Chinese Abstract

百花齐放：中小企业女企业家的秘诀

女性参与和发挥她们在社会中的作用是联合国全球核心目标之一。本研究实现了以下目标：首先，扩展了现有关于女性意图和其对小型项目创业欲望的知识;其次，探讨了感知结果；第三，基于目前女性在领导中小企业（SME）项目时面临的制约因素制定了行动计划。本研究采用在线调查问卷，收集了来自沙特阿拉伯的433位企业家的数据（26.3％为大学教职员工，23.1％为项目发起者，22.9％为银行贷款持有者，16.2％为大学生和11.5％为领导者）。本研究使用偏最小二乘路径模型（PLS-SEM）对收集的数据进行了分析。结果证实，女企业家对小型项目的偏好受到其意图，教育，个性特征和中小企业项目类型的正面影响；小型项目的创业意愿直接影响心理，社会和经济效应。此外，结果显示，综合模型在预测创办中小企业的女企业家的偏好方面具有相关性（解释方差=72%）。本文的概念框架为阿拉伯领先国家的女性创业文献做出贡献。作者制定了行动计划，以弥合女性创业者在实践和理论之间的差距。该行动计划是帮助阿拉伯国家的政策制定者更好地处理女企业家所遇到的制约因素的先导。

关键词：女性企业家，中小企业，创业渴求，个性特征，阿拉伯国家

ORCID Identifiers

Karam Zaki: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6070-5449

Hany Shared: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3878-7334

DOI

10.5038/2640-6489.7.1.1212

Recommended Citation

Zaki, K., & Shared, H. (2022). Many flowers make a bouquet: A recipe for women entrepreneurs in SMEs. Journal of Global Business Insights, 7(1), 50-65. https://www.doi.org/10.5038/2640-6489.7.1.1212