Identifying Challenges Faced by Women Entrepreneurs in The Rural Areas in Malaysia using A Nominal Group Technique
Nor Aziah Abd Kadir1*, Hasnizawati Hashim1, Fadli Dali1, Rozieana A. Halid@Khalid1
1 Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Cawangan Pahang Kampus Raub, 27600 Raub, Pahang, Malaysia
*Corresponding Author: [email protected] Accepted: 15 November 2022 | Published: 1 December 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.55057/aje.2022.3.4.1
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Abstract: Women entrepreneurs play a substantial role in the development of economic activities and quality of life among the population. People living in rural areas still face many potential problems as rural areas are always marked as a place with underdeveloped socioeconomic factors. There is a lack of network infrastructure, telecommunication services, poverty, and capital limitation. This study will identify the challenges confronted by women entrepreneurs in rural areas. A Focus Group Discussion was established to collect experts’
opinions based on the issue. Eight experts among businesswomen and professionals were invited to discuss the challenges and categorized them using specific themes. Then, the themes of the challenges were analyzed using the Nominal Group Technique (NGT-plus) software. The result identified six challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in rural areas. The percentage of all challenges is more than 70% showing that all experts agreed that the challenges are valid and significant for women entrepreneurs in rural areas. The finding also showed that geographical isolation from support networks is the most challenging theme among others.
The finding is helpful for policymakers and the government to plan an appropriate intervention policy to assist women entrepreneurs in rural areas and upgrade the infrastructures to attract more investors in long run.
Keywords: challenges, NGT, rural areas, women entrepreneurs
___________________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
Women entrepreneurs can refer to either an individual woman or a group of women working together to start, organize, and manage a commercial enterprise (Gimenez-Jimenez et al, 2020).
They are the ones who conceive of a business enterprise, launch it, organize, and combine the factors of production, operate the enterprise, take on risks, and deal with the economic uncertainty involved in running it (Setini et al., 2020). Entrepreneurship is the process of creating and operating a business enterprise.
In Malaysia, the participation of women in entrepreneurship grew steadily with an annual growth rate of 8 percent in 2015. Malaysia recorded 920,624 businesses in 2015 compared to 648,260 businesses in 2010. The number of women-owned businesses in 2015 was 187,265 or around 20.3% of the total number of businesses in Malaysia (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2017). This data shows that women also play an important role in the increment number of Malaysian entrepreneurs.
The highest participation of women in entrepreneurship came from services (92.7%) and was followed by manufacturing (5.1%) and construction (1.4%) (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2017). The agricultural sector only contributed 0.8% of total women-owned establishments.
As the agricultural sector is associated with the rural area, it was presumably easy to understand that entrepreneurship in rural areas was also low. Hence, the government must improve the participation of women in entrepreneurship.
The steady growth in women’s entrepreneurship among others is influenced by factors such as government assistance. In the 2021 annual budget, the Malaysian government has allocated RM 38.7 billion for SMEs (Small and Medium enterprises) development (SME Corp.
Malaysia, 2021). A total of RM 145 million out of a total of RM 38.7 billion was allocated for the development of women’s entrepreneurship. These include a total of RM 95 million in special micro-credit financing through TEKUN (Tabung Ekonomi Kumpulan Usaha Niaga), MARA (Majlis Amanah Rakyat), and Agrobank and a total of RM 50 million in Islamic financing through YAPEM (Yayasan Pembangunan Ekonomi Islam).
In other countries such as India, studies have shown that currently, women’s participation in entrepreneurial comprises 13.76% of total entrepreneurs (i.e. 8.05 million out of the total 58.5 million entrepreneurs) and out of these entrepreneurs, 2.76 million women work in the agriculture sector whereas 5.29 million females work in non-agricultural sectors (Shambunath, 2021). Some progress has been made by the current government by introducing various entrepreneurial schemes to help women (i.e. Stree Shakti Package, Udyogini Scheme, etc.).
These schemes can show the recognition of the government to the entrepreneurship agenda and appreciation of women’s participation in entrepreneurship. Even though there are many challenges faced by them, they could not demotivate or even stop from involving in entrepreneurship.
Many women entrepreneurs have achieved great success and contribute to the national income.
Although many of them have achieved success, their true potential has not yet been realized.
There are a variety of challenges that have been proposed for this phenomenon. Thus, the objective of this study is to find out what experts’ consensus on the challenges faced by the women entrepreneurs in rural areas in Malaysia. Identifying these challenges and resolving them could improve the quality of life of the women entrepreneurs themselves as well as the rural population.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Women entrepreneurs in the rural area
Entrepreneurship in rural areas is commonly focusing in small and medium scale of business.
Women usually involve in bakery, cosmetics, general store, food and beverages and traditional agriculture (Osorio et al. 2021). These small businesses can come in many forms, cater to the varied requirements of populations, sell a variety of products, and contain a wide range of employment opportunities (Peltoniemi, 2015). The existence of these small business contributes much to the local populations.
Moreover, it is beyond dispute that entrepreneurship plays a significant role in the growth of a nation's economy. In general, entrepreneurs can spur a country's economic growth and prosperity through their ability in conducting business to generate profit, combat poverty, create job opportunities (Anjum et al., 2021), and increase demand for new products in
(Sebayang & Febrina (2021). Entrepreneurship provides more benefits and increases income to the local communities.
In the women’s context, previous studies demonstrated that women’s entrepreneurship across the world significantly contributes to the economic development and social well-being of the economy (Sajjad et al., 2020). Afshan et al. (2021) also agreed that women’s participation in entrepreneurship does affect economic growth. However, measuring entrepreneurial outcomes using economic growth alone oversees the many ways female entrepreneurship contributes to women’s empowerment, such as in personal fulfillment, increased autonomy, improved livelihoods, and a better work-family balance (Cardella et al., 2020). Nonetheless, these long lists could not deny the contributions of women’s participation in entrepreneurship.
Despite these contributions, women entrepreneurs also faced a few challenges which could hold up their participation in becoming an entrepreneur. Undeniably, not every potential businesswoman has equal access to entrepreneurship. The burden to cope with the challenges will be borne and accepted differently based on the entrepreneurs themselves.
2.2 Challenges for women entrepreneurs in the rural area
It is well-accepted fact that the role of women entrepreneurs is of utmost important in today’s business scenario. However, due to many factors, women entrepreneurs have to face difficulties in this area, which is commonly dominated by males, especially in rural areas. Despite the effort and precise strategies directed towards their business, the gap between success and achievement, and challenges remain. These challenges started even in the phase of initiating and running a business (Isa et al., 2018).
Generally, women entrepreneurs must face the reality of a significant imbalance in cultural values (Isa et al., 2018) and gender inequality (Ariffin et al., 2020; Basit et al., 2020) which may limit their ability in managing a business. Women in Malaysia traditionally is perceived as a person who is totally responsible for household obligation as well as taking care of their children. This is based on society belief that women have to be fully accountable for fulfilling the “women’s work” (Kusuma et al., 2019). Furthermore, women entrepreneurs can also be seen as irrational and full of emotion in making decisions that hindered their leadership ability.
These stereotypes will lead to double the effort of women entrepreneurs in managing their business.
Furthermore, the issue of financial accessibility (Amutha & Sridhar, 2020; Isa et al., 2018;
Maduraiveeran & Sudha, 2020) and knowledge management are other substantial difficulties faced by women entrepreneurs, especially in the rural area (Telang & Panwar, 2022). This is due to lack of proper education received or lack of business and management training/skills exposure in certain countries (Amutha & Sridhar, 2020). Kusuma et al. (2019) for an instance, highlighted the importance of marketing while Isa et al. (2021) urges the significant role of ICT in business that can help rural women entrepreneur to survive in business. On the other hand, the culture in certain countries such as India (Dhillon, 2017; Gupta & Saxena, 2021) has limit the social inheritance because male is seen as more competent in handling assets and money. Hence, this situation will cause difficulties for women entrepreneur to raise fund or secured any loans due to the collateral requirement.
On the other hand, an isolated geographical factor of the rural areas could hamper the potential of women entrepreneurs (Ghouse et al., 2021). This limitation will give negative impact to the
access of network support such as road facilities, internet and other tele-communication services (Da Xu, 2016). Thus, these limitations will give defect the business development.
Despite the growing numbers of women entrepreneurs’ involvement, family and social support remain as another enormous challenge to them. Women is known as the one who act as “dual sided coin” (Gupta & Saxena, 2021). Therefore, they are expected to balance their commitment as life provider and business managers. Nonetheless, lack of full support and belief from the family members and surrounding on women’s ability may affect their potential in business.
3. Methodology
This study uses The Nominal Group Technique (NGT) as the primary methodology. Eight experts were invited to the Focus Group Discussion (FGD) to discuss the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in rural areas in Malaysia. The experts were among the women business owners living in the rural areas in Malaysia and professionals in the entrepreneurial field of studies. The NGT meeting was conducted online via a Google meet. The experts were consulted by the researchers so that new ideas and approaches to the issues can be developed.
As the session ended, the researchers employed the NGT technique to carry out a specific computation to collect data pertinent to the study's objectives.
In this study, we employed two techniques. Researchers began by focusing on the literature to establish challenges that rural women business owners encountered. The second phase made use of the synthesized results. There were nine inferences made about the challenges they confront based on the existing literature. Researchers frequently seek advice from experts in the field when deciding whether the given challenges were relevant related to women entrepreneurs in rural areas in Malaysia. In the second phase, the NGT technique was used to analyze the data. All experts in the study convened for a vote in the group brainstorming’s session. All experts' opinions are considered and were rated at this time. The NGT-PLUS software was used for the final tally of the session. The results of the investigation were discussed in the finding section of this study.
3.1 Nominal Group Technique (NGT)
Previous researchers (McMillan et al., 2016; Søndergaard et al., 2018) have developed and implemented the NGT approach to determine whether a group of people are in agreement over a specific matter. Theoretically, the authors Delbecq et al. (1975) came up with the idea of theory of "social planning scenarios" as a "participation technique for social planning." This
"participation technique for social planning" would combine exploratory research, public participation, the use of experts from a variety of disciplines, and the evaluation of proposed plans (Kennedy & Clinton, 2015). Since it was developed, this methodology has been useful in a wide variety of group contexts, and empirical research in the social sciences is just one of those situations. It appears to be utilized more frequently in several sectors of research, including social science research on entrepreneurship (Patra & Lenka, 2022; Ahmad et al., 2022), education (Muridan et al., 2019), and economics (Rogowski et al., 2015).
This method is helpful for setting down the issues, identifying potential solutions, and organizing competing priorities. It is beneficial to acquire knowledge from people who are directly involved in the matter and are experts on it. This approach can help minimize bias and distribute power more evenly because it allows only one person to dominate the discussion.
The following steps are commonly involved in an NGT procedure:
i. Brainstorming. It requires individuals to think on their own, in silence, in order to come up with written responses to a question that serves as a stimulus.
ii. A round robin. This is the way that is used, and each person contributes one idea, which is then recorded by a facilitator and presented it to others via a 'shared document' in a google meet. Within the limitations of this discussion, we are not permitted to talk about the ideas. The completed forms are then presented again to everyone by a facilitator. In between the facilitator will continue to ask for volunteers until there have been a sufficient number of ideas suggested by the group.
iii. Discussion. In order to arrive at a consensus over how each idea should be understood, the group goes through the list of the challenges and debates it. At this stage, the experts discussed and categorized the challenges based on specific theme.
iv. Vote. After the participants have selected their preferred ideas, they do their votes on the list that is shown in PowerPoint slides, and then they discuss the outcomes (optional). Voting without revealing one's identity in accordance with the following set of criteria encourages genuine outcomes and dedication.
By writing down all suggestions and changes that have been authorized prior to presentation, the NGT creates a record that will last for the duration of the group's procedure and results. By showing these documents, groups will be able to pick up exactly where they left off, and members who couldn't make it will have the opportunity to catch up on what they were missing (Fox, 1989; Mustapha et al.2022).
3.2 Sampling
The method of sampling that was used in this investigation was based on the work of Mustapha et al (2022). In order to determine the problems, they consulted eight experts. Due to the fact that it takes into account the typical number of experts followed by Van & Delbecq (1974), Dang (2015), and Borhan et al. (2022). This number of experts is regarded to be adequate.
Table 1: NGT Voting Result
Table 2: Prior Rank
Items / Elements New Rank Previous Rank
Geographical isolation from support networks 1 2
Infrastructure gaps, including reliable internet and telephone service 2 3
Personal dynamics 3 1
Limited capital and labour 4 4
Limited access to marketing 5 5
Low population density 6 6
Items / Elements
Vote r1
Vote r2
Vote r3
Vote r4
Vote r5
Vote r6
Vote r7
Vote r8
Total item score
Percent age
Rank Priority
Voter Consensus
Personal dynamics 6 6 6 6 6 7 7 6 50 89.29 3 Suitable
Geographical isolation from support networks 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 56 100 1 Suitable
Infrastructure gaps, including reliable internet and
telephone service 6 7 6 7 7 7 7 7 54 96.43 2 Suitable
Limited capital and labor 5 7 6 5 6 6 6 6 47 83.93 4 Suitable
Limited access to marketing 6 5 5 6 5 5 6 6 44 78.57 5 Suitable
Low population density 5 5 5 6 6 5 5 6 43 76.79 6 Suitable
3.3 Finding
This research reveals that experts agree on a set of challenges and rank them in order of their potential usefulness in measuring the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in rural areas in Malaysia. Table 1 displays the results. The findings validate the feasibility of accepting all of the challenges listed by business owners and experts. The percentage which is greater than 70%, can be inferred that the listed challenges are appropriate and significant (Humphrey- Murto et al, 2017; Their & Mason, 2019; Mustapha et al.2022). Table 2 illustrates the comparison of the ranking of the challenges provided by experts. There are differences in a list of challenges dependent on rank. Most of experts agreed with Ghouse et al., (2021) that the challenges of geographical isolation from support networks is the most challenging factors among women entrepreneurs in rural area in Malaysia while the low population density is the least influencing challengers.
4. Conclusion
In conclusion, the challenges that have been outlined in this study have the potential to be overcome to promote entrepreneurship among women in rural areas in Malaysia. Even business run by women entrepreneurs in rural areas are in a small scale, they play important roles in increasing their quality of life. Similarly, it will offer new job opportunity among local communities and variety of products to fulfil the need of the society. Researchers may want to place a greater emphasis in future studies on monitoring the intervention strategies that can be taken to overcome the challengers and also the effectiveness of the intervention strategies. This is because the breadth of the investigation, the opinions of the specialists may vary.
References
Afshan, G., Shahid, S., & Tunio, M. N. (2021). Learning experiences of women entrepreneurs amidst COVID-19. International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship. 13(2). 162- 186.
Ahmad, N. A., Rasul, M. S., Othman, N., & Jalaludin, N. A. (2022). Generating Entrepreneurial Ideas for Business Development. Sustainability, 14(9), 1-11.
https://doi.org/10.3390/su14094905
Anjum, T., Farrukh, M., Heidler, P., and Tautiva, J. A. D. (2021). Entrepreneurial intention:
Creativity, entrepreneurship, and university support. Journal of Open Innovation:
Technology, Market, and Complexity, 7(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3390/joitmc7010011 Amutha, M., & Sridhar, T. (2020). Impact of problems on the success of women entrepreneur, International Journal of Management, 11(11), 3778-3783.
https://doi.org/10.34218/IJM.11.11.2020.372
Ariffin, A. S., Baqutayan, S. M. S., & Mahdzir, A. M. (2020). Enhancing women entrepreneurship development framework: Policy & institution gap and challenges in the case of Malaysia. Journal of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, 6(2), 22-33.
Basit, A., Wong, S., Hassan, Z., & Sethumadhavan, S. (2020). Entrepreneurial success: Key challenges faced by Malaysian women entrepreneurs in 21st century. International Journal of Business and Management, 15(9), 122-138.
Borhan, M., Maziah, M., Awang, H., & Abdul, M. N. (2022). Generating the Net-Based Learning Model in New Technological Era: The Islamic Need. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development. 11(2), 1738 - 1752 Cardella, G. M., Hernández-Sánchez, B. R., & Sánchez-García, J. C. (2020). Women
entrepreneurship: A systematic review to outline the boundaries of scientific literature. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01557.
Dang, V. H. (2015). The Use of Nominal Group Technique: Case Study in Vietnam. World
Journal of Education, 5(4), 14-25.
Da Xu, L. (2016). An internet-of-things initiative for one belt one road (OBOR). Frontiers of Engineering Management, 3(3), 206-223.
Delbecq, A. L., Van de Ven, A. H., & Gustafson, D. H. (1975). Group techniques for program planning: A guide to nominal group and Delphi processes. Scott, Foresman.
Dhillon, M. (2017). Challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in India. International Journal in Multidisciplinary and Academic Research, 6(4), 86-89.
Department of Statistic Malaysia. (2017, December, 10). Department of Statistics Malaysia Press Release Economic Census 2016 - Halal Statistics. Economic Census 2016, December.https://newss.statistics.gov.my/newss-
portalx/ep/epProductCatalogForm.seam?cid=413760.
Fox, W. M. (1989). The improved nominal group technique (INGT). Journal of management development. , Vol. 15 Iss 1 pp. 6-18. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1108/13522751211191964 Ghouse, S. M., Durrah, O., & McElwee, G. (2021). Rural women entrepreneurs in Oman:
Problems and opportunities. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior &
Research. 27(7). 1674-1695. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-03-2021-0209.
Gimenez-Jimenez, D., Edelman, L. F., Dawson, A., & Calabrò, A. (2020). Women entrepreneurs’ progress in the venturing process: the impact of risk aversion and culture. Small Business Economics, 1-21.
Gupta, S., & Saxena, N. K. (2021). Revisiting women entrepreneurship for emerging digital economy. OJAS, 31-39.
Humphrey-Murto, S., Varpio, L., Gonsalves, C., & Wood, T. J. (2017). Using consensus group methods such as Delphi and Nominal Group in medical education research. Medical teacher, 39(1), 14-19.
Isa, F. M., Jaganathan, M., Ahmdon, M. A. S. & Ibrahim, H. M. (2018). Malaysian women entrepreneurs: Some emerging issues and challenges of entering global market.
International Journal of Academic Research in Business & Social Sciences, 8(12), 1596- 1605.
Isa, F. M., Muhammad, N. M. N., Ahmad, A., & Noor, S. (2021). Effect of ICT on women entrepreneur business performance: case of Malaysia. Journal of Economics and Business, 4(1), 137-146.
Kennedy, A., & Clinton, C. (2009). Identifying the professional development needs of early career teachers in Scotland using nominal group technique. Teacher Development, 13(1), 29-41.
Kusuma, A., Tutiasri, R. P., Romadhona, M. R. & Khasanah, U. U. (2019). Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, 423, 1-10.
https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.200325.001
Maduraiveeran, P., & Sudha, G. P. (2020). Rural women entrepreneur and capacity building:
Role of NGOs in empowering women in India. SHS Web of Conferences, 86, 1-4.
McMillan, S. S., King, M., & Tully, M. P. (2016). How to use the nominal group and Delphi techniques. International journal of clinical pharmacy, 38(3), 655-662.
Muridan, N. D., Rasul, M. S., Yasin, R. M., Abd Rauf, R. A., Yahaya, N., & Nor, A. R. M.
(2019). Using nominal group technique to identify career decision elements for TVET entrepreneurs. International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change, 7(6), 211- 226.
Mustapha, R., Ibrahim, N., Mahmud, M., Jaafar, A. B., Ahmad, W. A. W., & Mohamad, N. H.
(2022). Brainstorming the Students Mental Health after Covid-19 Outbreak and How to Curb from Islamic Perspectives: Nominal Group Technique Analysis Approach.
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. 12(2), 90–
99.
Osorio, L. L. D. R., Flórez-López, E., & Grande-Tovar, C. D. (2021). The potential of selected agri-food loss and waste to contribute to a circular economy: Applications in the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Molecules, 26(2), 1-42.
Patra, B. C., & Lenka, U. (2022). Barriers to entrepreneurial intentions of women: Nominal group technique, analytic hierarchy process, and scientometric approach instigating the necessity of policy intervention. Journal of Public Affairs, 22(2), 1-12.
Peltoniemi, M. (2015). Cultural industries: Product–market characteristics, management challenges and industry dynamics. International journal of management reviews, 17(1), 41-68.
Rogowski, W., Payne, K., Schnell-Inderst, P., Manca, A., Rochau, U., Jahn, B., ... & Siebert, U. (2015). Concepts of ‘personalization’ in personalized medicine: implications for economic evaluation. Pharmacoeconomics, 33(1), 49-59.
Sajjad, M., Kaleem, N., Chani, M. I., & Ahmed, M. (2020). Worldwide role of women entrepreneurs in economic development. Asia Pacific Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 14(2), 151–160. https://doi.org/10.1108/apjie-06-2019-0041
Sebayang, K. D. A., & Febrina, B. (2021). Are business regulations improving economic growth? Case study between ASEAN and European Union. Jurnal Pendidikan Ekonomi Dan Bisnis (JPEB), 9(1), 44-53.
Setini, M., Yasa, N. N. K., Gede Supartha, I. W., Ketut Giantari, I. G. A., & Rajiani, I. (2020).
The passway of women entrepreneurship: Starting from social capital with open innovation, through to knowledge sharing and innovative performance. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 6(2), 25.
Shambunath, B. (2021). Women Entrepreneurship in Rural India : Key To India’s Economic Growth. International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews, 8(1), 10–17.
SME Corp. Malaysia. (2021). SME Insights 2019/2020 (SMEs in the NEW Normal: Rebuilding the Economy). Retrieved from www.smecorp.gov.my.
Søndergaard, E., Ertmann, R. K., Reventlow, S., & Lykke, K. (2018). Using a modified nominal group technique to develop general practice. BMC family practice, 19(1), 1-9.
Telang, V., & Panwar, Y. (2022). A study in the level of financial literacy among Indian women: A review of selected literature. International Journal of Recent Advances in Multidisciplinary Topics, 3(2), 48-51.
Thier, M., & Mason, D. P. (2019). Breaking ranks? Differentiating nominal group technique scoring approaches for consensus and prioritization. International Journal of Research
& Method in Education, 42(4), 428-441.
Ven, A. H. V. D., & Delbecq, A. L. (1974). The effectiveness of nominal, Delphi, and interacting group decision-making processes. Academy of management Journal, 17(4), 605-621.
