International Journal of Research and Development - A Management Review (IJRDMR)
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Promoting Young Women Entrepreneurship in India
1P. Girijasri, 2P.Krishna Sunil, 3R. Ravikanth
Dep. of Mgt studies, Narasaraopet Institute of Technology, Narasaraopet.
Abstract : Entrepreneurship is one of the best means for triggering economic and social development in developing countries like India. It provides employment to huge mass of people. India is the nation known for it’s youth population which is considered as it’s greatest asset, and at the same time the biggest threat is youth unemployment.
Hence developing entrepreneurial skills among youth is more important for the growth of Indian Economy. But surprisingly youth, especially women are attracted less towards Entrepreneurship as compared to other professions, by the cause of, lack of motivation and other socio economic problems.
Entrepreneurship is the state of mind which every woman has in her but has not been capitalized in India in a way it should be. Due to changes in environment, now people are more comfortable accepting the leading role of women in the society, though there are some exceptions. Our increasing dependency on service sector has created many entrepreneurial opportunities, especially for women where they can excel with their skills while maintaining balance in her life. This paper helps in finding the ways for promoting young women entrepreneurship and identified the motivational factors like ambitions, supportive, professional competence, independence and work environment etc. It concludes that the potential of Indian young women is huge which should be properly harnessed and should be properly channelled to be involved in Entrepreneurship with ample support and encouragement from the family, society, government and educational institutions.
I. INTRODUCTION:
Entrepreneurship is the backbone of any economy.
Every stable government in the world has kept promoting entrepreneurship as one of the main agendas in its policies and plan document. The new ventures developed through Entrepreneurship have been reported to yield a wide spectrum of economic benefits through innovation, generation of new business, creation of new jobs, development of innovative products and services, and have also created the opportunity for future investment in the growth and development activities of the nation. It is by the efforts of entrepreneurs that wealth accumulation takes place in the society. It has been observed worldwide that whenever an economy has shown signs of development, in the background there were enterprising entrepreneurs. Thus, entrepreneurship is the solution to the twin problems of
unemployment and poverty in a nation (Dash and Kaur, 2012).
Entrepreneurship is the capacity and willingness to develop, organize and manage a business venture along with any of its risks in order to earn profit. In economics, entrepreneurship combined with land, labour, natural resources and capital can produce profit.
Entrepreneurial spirit is characterised by innovation and risk-taking, and is an essential part of a nation’s ability to succeed in an ever-changing and increasingly competitive global market place. In this era of liberalisation, privatization and globalization along with IT revolution, the world is changing at a surprising pace.
Political and economical transformations appear to be taking anywhere as countries convert from command to demand economies, dictatorships move toward democratic system. These changes have created economic opportunities for women who want to own and operate business.
Recently, interest in youth entrepreneurship has fuelled due to high levels of unemployment amongst the young people and as a way to foster self-employment opportunities. Youth entrepreneurship has gained more importance in recent years in many countries with increased interest in entrepreneurship as a way of boosting economic competitiveness and promoting regional development.
India has almost 300 million youth, but only 100 million jobs. Therefore, the country faces a 200 million employment gap. This gap can bridged only through self-employment and entrepreneurship-driven employment. We have to strongly believe in the entrepreneurial spirit of India’s youth. But in order to support youth entrepreneurship, right frame work, funding and mentoring need to be provided (Chigunta 2002).
A survey done by the Entrepreneurship development institution, India (EDII) in 2003 showed that young people, especially women are afraid to start their own business because they are not confident, not capable and lack knowledge in starting a business. The Indian family culture also fails to instil positive perception about entrepreneurship.
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However, today entrepreneurship is a rare quality to be found in women youngsters. This is due to the fact that entrepreneurs have to assume greater responsibility and bear the risk of setting up a venture. Since youth is generally risk-averse, the number of young women entrepreneurs that we come across is only a very small percentage of the total population in India (Blanch flower and Oswald, 1990).
Young women entrepreneurs represent a group of women who have broken away from the beaten track are exploring new avenues of economic participation in their early age. Some significant reasons for young women to run and organize enterprises are their skill and knowledge, talent, abilities and creativity in business and a compelling desire of wanting to do something positive. It is high time that countries rose to challenge and created more support systems for encouraging more entrepreneurship amongst women. At the same time, it is up to women to break away from stereotypical mindsets. In this dynamic world, women entrepreneurs are a significant part of the global expedition for sustained economic development and social progress.
Due to growing industrialization , urbanization, social legislation, and the spread of higher education are awareness, the emergence of women-owned business are highly increasing in almost all countries. In the past a women’s world was defined by 3K’s – Kitchen, Kids and Knitting, then came 3P’s – Powder, Pappad and Pickles, and at present, there are 4E’s – Electricity, Electronics, Energy and Engineering. Indian women have come a long way and are becoming increasingly visible and successful in all spheres and have shifted from kitchen to higher level of professional activities.
Today, young women are taking more and more professional and technical degree to cope with market need and flourishing as designers, interior decorators, exporters, publishers and government manufacturers and skill exploring new avenues of economic participation.
For these reasons that the government bodies , NGO’s , social scientists, researchers and international agencies have started showing interest in the issues related to entrepreneurship among women in India. Women Entrepreneurs explore the prospects of starting a new enterprise, undertake risks, introduce new innovations, coordinate administration, control business, and provide effective leadership in all aspects of business and have proved themselves in the male dominated business arena. Numerous studies have showed different kinds of motivational factors that motivate entrepreneurs. These are independence and willing to be free of any control or to become one’s own boss, financial incentives, and the desire to gain more and achieve success (Birely and Westhead, 1994). As most people generally equate money and profits as the best way to measure individual and business success, many might not view a majority of women-owned business as successful due to their being smaller in size and slower in terms of growth. A handful of women entrepreneurs measure success as and when
they can see that they are economically valuable resource (Dhaliwal, 2000).
Women entrepreneurs have been making a significant impact in all segments of economy of the world. Their willingness for the future is apparent in their growing confidence, strength and desire to seek different forms of work in order to achieve a new balance between work and home. Thus, a women entrepreneur is one who starts a business and manages it independently and tactfully taking all the risks, and accepts the challenging role of meeting her personal needs and becomes economically independent. A strong desire to do something positive is both family and social life and is the one who faces challenges boldly with iron will to succeed.
It is believed that entrepreneurial education is a key part of the solution in promoting youth entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurial education is essential not only to shape the mindsets of young people but also to provide the skills and knowledge that are central to developing an entrepreneurial culture (Goel et al., 2007). Even though the educational institutions promote entrepreneurship culture among the students, the basic entrepreneurial trait of risk taking is found lacking in them. They prefer joining organizations offering a handsome salary package, lucrative career growth, secure job and steady earnings. There is also a lack of encouragement from the family members and the society for the youth to become entrepreneurs (Rahman, 2008). With this situation prevailing India, the present paper based on secondary data analyzing entrepreneurial trait in young women, the socio-economic factors influencing as young women entrepreneurship and also the determinants which promote youth entrepreneurship.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW:
Leven burg and Schwarz(2006) stated that even though a combination of social configuration and cultural values with in India historically confined entrepreneurship, a no. of efforts in a recent years seem to have significantly recasted the national mindset regarding entrepreneurship, particularly among India’s youth.
The first report in YBI’s making entrepreneurship work series (YBI, 2009) suggested that a business, governments and other sectors of society increasingly perceive that supporting young entrepreneurs can be a highly effective way to reduce youth unemployment and encourage growth in local communities.
Ajay Etal (2014) in their study highlighted the importance of educational institutions in generating entrepreneurial attitude among students. They further pointed out that the student were not very keen on taking up entrepreneurship as a career option due to their ignorance towards the various aspects of entrepreneurship.
Suresh and Krishnamurthy (2014) showed that the major constraints in the development of entrepreneurial trait among the youth are inadequate finance, fear of risk,
less motivational environment, and lack of support from family and society. They suggested that by introducing the subject of entrepreneurship. The students can be made aware of the importance of entrepreneurship, and thereby they will equip themselves with the skills to become a prospective entrepreneur.
The reasons for women entrepreneurs owning business are the formation of initial idea about a product on service, desire for financial independence and the desire to be one’s own boss (Hisrich and fulop, 1981)
Women business owners are making significant contributions to global economic health, national competitive and community commerce by bringing many assets to the global market. As per the analysis of the study based on secondary data, women entrepreneurs have demonstrated the ability to build and maintain long-term relationships and networks to communicate effectively to organize efficiently, to be fiscally conservative and to be aware of the needs of their environments and to promote sensitivity to cultural differences (jal bert, 2000)
Financial support from the govt especially to the start up capital is an important factor that motive women to establish their own business self-fulfilment, knowledge, skills and experience, including relationship to spouse/father business are all important factors in the development of women entrepreneurs (kamal etal, and competition do not seem to be barriers for the women in becoming entrepreneurs (kamal etal, 2000)
This study also reveals that entrepreneurial success depends on psychological factors such as self- confidence, managerial competence, business commitments and work stress. Success is defined intrinsic criteria including freedom and independence , controlling a person’s own future and being one’s own boss; extrinsic criteria are among others, increased financial returns, personal income and wealth(paige and litterell, 2002) . business success is commonly defined in terms of economic or financial measures which include return on assets, sales, profits, employment and survival rates ;and non-pecuniary measure such as customer satisfaction personal development and personal achievement (masuo etal, 2001) finally, innovation in the business through information and communications technology (ICT) plays an important role in supporting women entrepreneurs in business by ensuring a low cost structure and achieving high returns per customer(marlin and wrighs ,2005)
Women entrepreneurs in developed countries were motivated by the need for achievement. Women are increasingly becoming more motivated by the social contribution that their businesses can make to society.
Desire for self-fulfilment is an important motivator to start a business (Mc Clleland et al., 2005)
Singh (2008) identified the reasons and influencing factors behind the entry of women in entrepreneurship.
He explained the characteristics of their business in the
Indian context and also the obstacles and challenges. He maintained that the obstacles to the growth of women Entrepreneurship are mainly lack of interaction with successful entrepreneurs, family responsibility, gender discrimination, missing network, and low priority given by bankers to provide loans to women entrepreneurs. He suggested remedial measures like promoting micro enterprises, unlocking institutional frame work, projecting and pulling to grow and support the winners, etc. The study advocates ensuring synergy among women related ministry, economic ministry and social and welfare development ministry of the Government of India.
Over the past decades, women have to juggle between work and family. To reduce stress and to balance between work and leisure, women should have high self- efficacy as an entrepreneur. This is due to the fact that self-efficacy is the main factor contributing to the success of women entrepreneurs (Javodian and Singh, 2012).
Women entrepreneurial activities are increasingly promoted as a means for creating growth and development and increased knowledge into motivational factors, performance and conditions of work are central when trying to establish appropriate policies around informal micro-entrepreneurship (Frank, 2002). Ismail (1996), in a study of female entrepreneurs in the Klong valley, found that women are motivated by a wide range of factors, the most common of which are: Opportunity to increase income, freedom, flexibility, interest,, to escape from insecure or low paid occupations and personal autonomy.
Objectives of the study:
The main objectives of the research are:
To study the perception and attitude of young women towards entrepreneurship
To study the factors contributing to motivate young women entrepreneurs to start up their own enterprise
To examine the motivational factors in socio- economical perspective, that impact youth entrepreneurship
Data and Methodology:
Information for the study was collected from secondary data sources.
Secondary data:
Secondary data was collected from various journals and books
Recommendations:
Based on the study a few recommendations are made to promote young entrepreneurship.
For the young women to become entrepreneurs, they should be equipped with certain skills to
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discover, identify and seize the business opportunities
Opportunity identification depends on prior awareness , knowledge and capabilities
Education and training becomes vital particularly in technical, communication, managerial, leadership, innovative, information-seeking and financial skills
To promote awareness , the educational institutions, even at school level should introduce entrepreneurship as part of the academic curriculum
The colleges can establish incubator centers for encouraging start-ups and small business development to provide support to the students
Colleges can encourage students to be involved in business activities while studying through part- time employment and campus entrepreneurship.
The colleges must arrange industrial visits.
Through these industrial visits, the students get business ideas and they indirectly motivate themselves to start their own business
The institutions can conduct business plan contest and provide a platform for the students to develop their business idea.
It is stressed that the cultivation of an entrepreneurial learning environments begins in the classroom. Faculty have to ensure that they remain well informed of current events and trends so as to ensure a meaningful exchange with learners
The teachers can make a contribution by including role playing and simulations in their presentations, if and when possible, followed by feedback to students so that they can adjust their approach to real-life situations.
Students should be involved in activities that may develop the knowledge, skills and experience required for successful entrepreneurial activities i.e organizing functions, selling products at a profit during breaks, public speaking competitions to develop communication skills etc.
Parents who are involved in business should encourage and involve their children in their business affairs right from young age.
Parents can contribute to the entrepreneurial development of their children by maintain open channels of communication.
The society should support and encourage the youth involved in entrepreneurship
Business enterprises , recognize the role it has to
play in youth entrepreneurship development, can also approach educational institutions to offer short, powerful presentations on their ventures to students, arrange field trips to their respective organizations to interact with the entrepreneur in action.
Offer work based learning opportunities after college hours or during holidays as their social responsibility. This interaction will promote networking between learners, teachers and business leaders.
The government should provide a conducive business environment and favorable business policies for the youth entrepreneurs to develop their business
The government can organize entrepreneurship awareness and development programs for the youth, and conduct workshop for training youth in entrepreneurial and business skills.
Create additional financial support through low- interest loans and targeted grants to young entrepreneurs who are willing to establish their own business.
III. CONCLUSION:
Young women entrepreneurship has been on the rise as a global phenomenon much before India became sensitive to the development of youth entrepreneurship. However, there is an increased awareness about the importance of youth entrepreneurship in India. There are ample opportunities for transforming youth into entrepreneurs in the coming future. For such transformation, support is needed at both governmental and social levels.
The present study attempted to analyze the entrepreneurial traits and attitude of Indian young women towards entrepreneurship. It concludes that the potential of Indian youth is huge which should be rightly harnessed and they should be properly channelled to be involved in entrepreneurship with ample support and encouragement from the family, society, government and educational institutions. If this happens, there is no doubt that the young women entrepreneurs will become the torchbearers of future India.
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