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International Journal of Management (IJM)
Volume 9, Issue 1, Jan–Feb 2018, pp. 10–15, Article ID: IJM_09_01_003
Available online at
http://www.iaeme.com/ijm/issues.asp?JType=IJM&VType=9&IType=1
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ISSN Print: 0976-6502 and ISSN Online: 0976-6510
© IAEME Publication
WOMEN SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND
ITS IMPACT ON ENTREPRENEURIAL
PERFORMANCE
M. Malarkodi
Head of the Department, Department of Management,
GSS Jain College for Women, Chennai
Dr. Saifil Ali
Professor, School of Management,
Dhaanish Ahmed College of Engineering, Chennai
ABSTRACT
A person who pursues an innovative idea with the potential to solve a community
problem is known as social entrepreneur. These individuals are willing to take on the
risk and effort to create positive changes in society through their initiatives. Examples
of social entrepreneurship include microfinance institutions, educational programs,
providing banking services in underserved areas, helping children orphaned by
epidemic disease, etc. The main goal of a social entrepreneur is not to earn a profit,
but to implement widespread improvements in society.
Key words: Social Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Performance
Cite this Article: M. Malarkodi and Dr. Saifil Ali, Women Social Entrepreneurship
and its Impact on Entrepreneurial Performance. International Journal of Management,
9 (1), 2018, pp. 10–15.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJM/issues.asp?JType=IJM&VType=9&IType=1
1. INTRODUCTION
Despite the explosive growth of the social entrepreneurship field, the relevance of gender to
conceptualizations and analysis in this field are still lacking despite claims that social
enterprise can address social issues such as women‟s empowerment. Thus, while women may
be the intended beneficiaries of particular forms of social enterprise, there is not a gender
aware framework to examine unvoiced assumptions guiding concepts and research in the
social entrepreneurship field more broadly (Brush, De Bruin and Welter, 2009). To address
this gap, we focus on gender as central to conceptualizing and understanding social
entrepreneurship, given that men and women are positioned differently in societies.
Specifically, we apply feminist perspectives to problematize the gender-neutral and gender-
blind assumptions related to the “social entrepreneur” and theorizing in the field of social
entrepreneurship. Feminist scholars have already demonstrated that the field of
Women Social Entrepreneurship and its Impact on Entrepreneurial Performance
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entrepreneurship arose from the “model of economic rationality alleged to be universal and a-
gendered” (Bruni, Gherardi and Poggo, 2004b).
While the field of social entrepreneurship may still be in flux regarding a cohesive
paradigm, existing concepts of the social entrepreneur envision an individual who is
particularly adopt the factors such as (1) Identifying a stable but inherently unjust equilibrium
that causes the exclusion, marginalization, or suffering of a segment of humanity that lacks
the financial means or political clout to achieve any transformative benefit on its own; (2)
identifying an opportunity in this unjust equilibrium, developing a social value proposition,
and bringing to bear inspiration, creativity, direct action, courage, and fortitude, thereby
challenging the stable state‟s hegemony; and (3) forging a new, stable equilibrium that
releases trapped potential or alleviates the suffering of the targeted group, and through
imitation and the creation of a stable ecosystem around the new equilibrium ensuring a better
future for the targeted group and even society at large (Martin and Osberg, 2007).
Thus the term “social entrepreneur” appears to have complex gender connotations rather
than gender-neutrality associated with it. We argue, therefore, that both the identity of the
social entrepreneur and the context in which this actor is embedded warrants analysis from a
gender perspective.
Social entrepreneurship is a growing, worldwide movement. The scope of social work is
no longer limited to men but also to women. Additionally, there is immense scope for women
social entrepreneurship to start their social initiatives. Women social entrepreneurship will
play a big role in bringing the growth to the rural women in India and so it becomes important
to study the factors, like entrepreneurial characteristics, entrepreneurial performance, and
determinants of women social entrepreneurship. Following areas are so important where India
faces problems:
Making the educated youths employable
Healthcare
Urban and Rural Sanitation
Making use of renewable sources of power
Nutrition and Food for the poor
Affordable housing
Agriculture
Apart from the areas mentioned above, many more are there, but these are the basic needs
of the Indian society, which are being the topics of discussions from so many years. Social
enterprises in these sectors will not only create many opportunities but also can find a solution
for these problems.
2. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
To find out the general status of women social entrepreneurship
To identify the factors which determine social entrepreneurship among women
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The literature review has identified the studies that have examined the influence and
relationship of variables used in the study. Research methodology includes the research
model, variables, population, sample of the study, profile of respondents, instruments used in
the study, and data collection methods. This study has made an attempt to analyze the
influencing factors of woman social entrepreneurship and its impact on entrepreneurial
M. Malarkodi and Dr. Saifil Ali
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performance. The respondents are the entrepreneurs who run their own Small and medium
sized enterprises in Tamilnadu.
4. RESEARCH DESIGN
It is to be noted that there are several ways of studying and handling a research problem. The
present study falls under the category of “Descriptive studies” as the nature of the problem is
to determine the relationship among the different variables. This type of research is also a
survey based study (Beri, 1983). The major strength of survey research has its wide scope
and ability to collect the detailed information from a sample of large population.
Sample Size
According to Schall (2003), sampling is “the process of selecting a sufficient number of
elements from the population, so that the study of the sample will enable to understand the
properties or characteristics would make it possible for the researcher to generalize such
properties or characteristics pertaining to the population elements.”
For the population of above 1,00,000, Van der Lans (2005) suggested a minimum of 400
samples enough to be surveyed. However, to avoid the error rate the sample size needs to be
increased (Sekaran, 2003). Hence, the researcher plans for more than 400 samples. In this
study the respondents are the Women entrepreneurs who run any business including trading,
industry and service enterprises. Respondents have been selected from the following top FIVE
associations in Chennai based on their familiarity. Chennai is selected because of the number
of entrepreneurs is more compared to other cities in Tamilnadu. Moreover, Chennai is a
metropolitan city where people from different culture and background can do business.
Hence, Chennai is selected as the research area.
5. FINDINGS
Based on the analysis of the data, the following major findings were made that are presented
under the respective objectives.
It is found that 70 percent of the respondents have previous work experience relevant to their
current business.
Around 40 percent of the respondents are spending more than 60 hours in a week to manage
their business, and 34.9 percent of the respondents are spending 41 to 60 hours per week, and
only 8.3 percent of the respondents are spending 20 hours or even less than 20 hours per week
to manage their business.
Study reveals that one fifth of the respondentsis doing import and export trade, while the same
percentage is doing whole sale and retail business. 7.9 percent of the respondents are doing
education and training services, 7.4 percent of them are doing technical and engineering
services, 6.6 percent of the respondents are doing manufacturing business and 4.8 percent of
them are doing computer and related services. Very few respondents are doing business like
construction, real estate, telecommunication, restaurants, transportation, health and beauty
services and tourism.
It is found that 18.0 percent of the respondent are conducting health awareness program as a
social activity, followed by 16.5 percent of them conducting road safety program, 16.3 percent
of the respondents are conducting education related program, 15.9 percent of them are doing
awareness program, 13.1 percent of the respondent are fighting against poverty and 10 percent
of the respondent are doing child welfare activities.
Study reveals that 40.6 percent of the respondents are motivated by themselves to perform the
social activities. 25.3 percent of them are influenced by their parents, 21.2 percent of the
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respondents are motivated by their friends and 12.9 percent of the respondents are influenced
by their relatives to perform the social activities in their business.
It is found from the study that 31.2 percent of the respondents are performing the social
activities for their self satisfaction. 23.0 percent of the respondents are doing social activities
to attract their customers, 18.6 percent of them are doing these types of activities only to obey
the government rules, 14.6 percent of them are doing for publicity and 12.5 percent of the
respondents are performing social activities in their business to earn more profit.
It is found that that „Entrepreneurial Intention‟ and „Social Valuation of Entrepreneurship‟
contribute significantly to the prediction of financing. In addition to that, „Perceived
Behavioral Control‟ is also found to have negatively and significantly contributed to the
prediction of financing.
Result reveals that „Entrepreneurial motivation‟ contribute significantly to the prediction of
technical support, which is followed by „Entrepreneurial Characteristics‟ and „Entrepreneurial
Intention‟ which are found to have negatively and significantly contributed to the prediction of
technical support.
It is identified that „Social Valuation of Entrepreneurship‟ and „Entrepreneurial Motivation‟
contribute significantly to the prediction of education training. In addition to that
„Entrepreneurial Intention‟ and „Entrepreneurial Characteristics‟ are also found to have
negatively and significantly contributed to the prediction of education training.
It is revealed from the result that the respondents differ significantly with respect to their age
towards financing, regulatory framework, technical support and access funding, but do not
differ towards entrepreneurship culture, taxation and education training.
Respondents who are in the age group of 31 to 40 years and 51 to 60 years are having positive
opinion about financing, regulatory framework, technical support and access funding, when
compared to the respondents who are in the age group of 41 to 50 years.
It is revealed from the result that the respondents differ significantly with respect to their age
of starting their business towards financing, technical support and access funding, but do not
differ towards regulatory framework, entrepreneurship culture, taxation and education
training.
Based on the analysis it is concluded that there exists a significant difference between the
respondents who have completed under-graduation level have positive opinion towards
various significant determinants of women social entrepreneurship compared to the
respondents who have completed diploma/certificate courses before starting their business.
It is found from the study that „technical support‟, „Financing‟, „Taxation‟and
„Entrepreneurship culture‟are significantly contributed in the prediction of entrepreneurial
performance.In addition to that „Regulatory Framework‟ is also found to have significantly
but negatively contributed in the prediction of entrepreneurial performance.
The result shows that „Entrepreneurial characteristics‟has negative direct effect on
Entrepreneurship Culture, Education and Training, Technical Support etc
The result shows that „Entrepreneurial characteristics‟has positive direct effect on Taxation,
Financing
The result shows that Entrepreneurial Intention does not have positive direct effect on
Regulatory Framework.
The result shows that Entrepreneurial Intention has negative direct effect on Technical
Support.
The result shows that Entrepreneurial motivation has positive direct effect on Regulatory
Framework, Technical support. Hence, it strongly supports the hypotheses.
The result shows that Technical Support has positive direct effect on Entrepreneurial
Performance. Hence, it strongly supports the hypotheses.
M. Malarkodi and Dr. Saifil Ali
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The result shows that Regulatory Framework has negative direct effect on Entrepreneurial
Performance. Hence, it strongly supports the hypotheses.
6. RECOMMENDATIONS
Though government is giving more importance to social entrepreneurship, it is in the hands of
entrepreneurs to take it in a manner where doing social activities gives self satisfaction as
public in India need social awareness in diverse fields.
Since, the result shows that the young people who chose for social entrepreneurial career need
education and training, government should come forward by providing adequate education
and training in the field of social entrepreneurship to those people either directly by opening
training centers for entrepreneurial aspirants at various district headquarters, or instructing the
NGOs and other private agencies to provide entrepreneurial training to those aspirants. This
will attract young women entrepreneurial aspirants to do society oriented service.
Result revealed that social entrepreneurs who had entrepreneurial intention and social
valuation of entrepreneurship are having more financing problems. Government should also
assist them in providing funds by instructing agencies to have social entrepreneurship ventures
with women social entrepreneurs, and also provide seed funds to them for initiating their
business.
As social valuation of entrepreneurship and perceived behavioral control significantly
influence entrepreneurship culture, training should be given to women social entrepreneurs on
educating social values and enhancing perceived behavioral control in order to have good
entrepreneurship culture. Government should take necessary steps to assists social
entrepreneurship, should open the door for excluded talents among the women entrepreneurs,
and should create more networking opportunities for the entrepreneurs in the country.
As the result suggest that urban women entrepreneurs are having more social interest when
compared to rural women entrepreneurs, it is suggested that the government and NGOs should
created and develop the rural entrepreneurs and educate them about the importance of social
values and activities.
The model derived out from this study put forth several outcomes, and these outcomes will be
helpful for entrepreneurs to enhance their performance and to determine their position in the
business. This model will be supportive to the Government for taking necessary initiative to
assess the performance of entrepreneurs and provide them adequate support based on their
requirements.
Though several associations are functioning in state level and also in central level, government
should take necessary steps to organize these associations and make them to put under one
roof which is an “Apex Association of Women Entrepreneurs” that controls all the
associations across the country. This body will device a regulatory system among the
entrepreneurs and will help them to solve their unsolved problems and issues pertaining to
their business in both individual oriented and society oriented.
7. CONCLUSIONS
Social entrepreneurship is attracting a new generation of leaders, who are all young,
passionate with full of energy and want to make societal difference. Indian women social
entrepreneurs are skilled and knowledgeable and they know how to prioritize their needs
based on their ventures they implement. From the findings of the study, it is observed that
social entrepreneurship in India is gaining momentum, and particularly women social
entrepreneurship is at its forward trend. Women social entrepreneurs are establishing their
name in several fields like import and export trade, wholesale and retail business, technical
and engineering services, education and training services, and also computer related services.
Presently, women social entrepreneurship focuses on different social activities like health
awareness programme, road safety programme, education related programme, poverty
