Definition of Women Entrepreneurship

Introduction

Of late entrepreneurship amongst women has become a topic of concern for all of us. Since women constitute nearly fifty percent of the total population of our country, it is necessary they play a positive and constructive role in the socio-economic development of the country. After Independence a good deal of attention has been given to spread of literacy, increasing employment through industrial development and improving health and quality of life of women in the country.

Women entrepreneurs may be defined as the woman or a group of women who initiate, organize and operate a business enterprise. Any women or group of women which innovates, initates or adapts an economic activity may be called women entrepreneurship.

Need for Women Entrepreneurship

For a long time women were confined to the limits of the home. Gradually more and more women entered professions and services. Now, finally, the women entrepreneurs have arrived. Business acumen is no longer a man’s prerogative. Women are rapidly emerging as smart and dynamic entrepreneurs.

Women have entered almost all areas of business activity, cleaning powder – you name it. Women have already entered the field. And the Indian women has ventured in areas like cement manufacturing, steel works, etc. in which most of her counterparts from the more developed countries are yet to enter. In India, certainly women to mean business, women entrepreneurship is required on the following grounds:

Society cannot afford to ignore this vast human resource with its immense potential.

Favourable changes in the socio-economic scene such as advent of labour saving devices have freed women from drudgery of long labour.

Concept of small family and break up of traditional joint family system has resulted in psychological liberation experienced by women.

Increased aspirations to widen their horizon and extend their role.

Scope of Women Entrepreneurship

In rural areas where agriculture is the prominent activity, agro­-based industries like food preservation, bakery, dairy, poultry can be taken up by women. They have been helping men in all these activities without getting any credit or money with a little training they could do it on their own in a business like manner. In areas where forests predominate, forest preservation, collection, assortment and classification of medical plants too can be done by them.

In districts where industries are located, spare parts and ancillary units can be managed by women. Apart from traditional industry, women should also be encouraged in mechanical and electrical activities. They can be trained in maintenance and repairs of all small machineries and they can be encouraged to start small workshops. Technical institutes can train girls and encourage them towards self-employment.

In urban parts, apart from teaching, nursing and other traditional occupations, there are many new areas where women can start on their own. With modern technological revolution, the field is vast and open, Electronics, computer services, information and consultancy services, advertising and publicity are some of the areas that women entrepreneurs can explore. What they need is training, finance and the cooperation and encouragement from the family, the society and the governmental organisations. That will enable women entrepreneurs to enter the mainstream of the country’s economy, which in turn will speed up the economic development of our country.

Strategies for Developing Women Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneuring is very specialised field where success depends strictly on personal ability in management, creativity imagination, self discipline, emotional stability and objective thinking. Women have to be motivated to join the national main stream of entrepreneurship by participating in the economic activity. It need not necessarily be welfare oriented but productivity oriented for specific economic development. It can be stated that the entry of women to industry in the last decade coincides with the shift in economy, based an low technology to high technology. Computers, laser optics, electronics and the lastest in communication technology introduced a sea change in production, technology where brain power rather than muscle power is needed for entrepreneurship.

Probably the shift in the production technology with the consequent change in customer demands also paved the way for increased women entrepreneurship.

The essentials of women entrepreneurship are opportunity, ability, motivation and attitude. When an individual is motivated by ability and opportunity factors, it results in productivity. Similarly, motivation and attitudinal factors serve as facilitators on ability and opportunity to work as catalysts for crystallising the entrepreneurship with productivity. When motivational factors are absent ability and opportunity of individuals stays dormant. The opportunity factor includes the volume of human energy, development of household technology, government laws, economic factors, social factors etc.

Institutions Assisting Women Entrepreneurship

An entrepreneur will require some orientation, acquaintance and moral support from various institutions. For selection of industry - Small Industries Service Institute and District Industries Centre. For Registration District Industries Centres Factory accommodation- District Industries Centre, SIDCO, SIPCOT.

For Finance - Tamil Nadu Industrial and Investment Corporation SIPCOT (Long Term Credit for fixed assets) District Industries Centre - (loans under state Aid Rules for block capital), Commercial Banks (Loans for meeting term and working capital needs)

Problems of Women Entrepreneurs

“For starting and running the unit women have to face various problems. These problems are classified under two categories.

Gender Related

The biggest problem or difficulty of a women entrepreneur is that she is a women. Some psycho-social factors impeding the growth of women entrepreneurship are given as problems as women. They are:

Poor self Image of Women

The present education, books, the media, films and all prevailing socio-cultural norms conspire and combine to perpetuate the image of women as a weak, submissive, non- aggressive daughter, an obedient, dutiful, dependent and faithful wife and a self sacrifising mother. Women themselves are so conditioned that they too unquestioningly accept this image of themselves and denigrate other women who might choose to question or step out of this traditional acceptable mould.

Discrimination

The perception of the states hierarchy based on the concept of men as ‘Superior’ and women as inferior has made the women subservient. Women is denied not in terms of her relation to man. Due to this social environment prevalent, they are unable to move freely as quickly as an individual to distant places to mobilise their resources or markets. This is a hindrance to their growth of business.

Faulty Socialisation

Right from early childhood when the educational conditioning begins, the attitudes comments and plans of their encouragement are different for each sex, the tasks to be performed, the game to be played are different. This tend to inhibit, entrepreneurship quality in two different ways. First an ideal of feminity has been set up, the values of which are contrary to those qualities needed for entrepreneurship.

Women and young women in particular internalize those values and limit their aspirations accordingly. Second who ever resist this socialization with the exception of a token few, are punished for their feminity and independence. Because of this faulty socialisation women are not ready to enter into the business.

Role Conflict

A women’s role refers to the way she is expected to behave in certain situations. In the Indian context, women’s place is completely at the mercy of her male relatives, first by virtue of birth and second by marriage. Indian women find it difficult to adjust themselves to the dual role that they have to playas traditional housewives and compete with men in the field of business and industry.

Entrepreneurship requires full devotion and dedication which is difficult if not impossible due to the role overload and role conflict. Many entrepreneurs think that there is a need to establish their business, but they do not wish to undertakes the same business they have no enough time to pay attention to these things, besides attending their domestic work.

Cultural Values

Women in our country has been worst victims of exploitation, prepetuated by an adjust socio-economic system dominated by old feudal values. The problems that women faced in entrepreneurship career are resistance, apathy, shyness, conservation, inhibition, poor response which are products of cultural traditions, value systems and social sanctions.

Practical Problems

The foremost difficulty of women entrepreneur is arranging finance and capital. Money is the blood steam of any enterprise. One can borrow finance from banks and other financial institutions. But the biggest catch is that of collateral security which is required to get bank credit. Women may have some jewellery but even then they cannot give it as security without the consent of the husbands of male members of their family. The male members may even persuade women to part with their jewellery but not ready to invest anything in the projects of women members. Procedures of obtaining bank loans and delay in getting it deter many women from venturing. At the Government level the licensing authorities, labour officers and sales tax inspector ask all sorts of humitiating questions like what technical qualifications you have, how will you manage labourers, how will you manage both house and business, does your husband approve etc.

Locational disadvantages are not uncommon for some entrepreneurs, because of their rural background and location. They are not having access ability to good markets. As a result, they are unable to get enough orders and market exposure.

Common problems for all entrepreneurs are how to market the product. They don’t know how to contact and whom to contact. Here the middlemen try to exploit women entrepreneurs. If she decides to eliminate all the tasks, she has to perform all the tasks. In these days, of strict competition, a lot of money is required for advertisement. If the product happens to be a consumer goods then it takes time to win people away from other products and make this product popular. Because of these reasons, they could not achieve significant growth in sales. Hence they are forced not to increase the production on any large scale.

The non-availability of raw material within their region is also a main problem to the entrepreneurs. They do not know from where they can get it at cheap rate.

The paucity of liquid resources, i.e. working capital has been regarded as another main problem in their day-to-day operation.

Non-availability of skilled labour is quite common and is serious problem for women. They need women workers mainly due to the nature of the product which they are producing like fabrick

painting, embroidery, crocket handicrafts,­ etc. By nature, workers could not like to come down to entrepreneurs place of work. As a result entrepreneurs are forced to go to workers place and hand over the entire work to them. This lead to high cost of production.

Those entrepreneurs who are doing embroidery, garments, painting, etc., are facing still price competition from the agencies sponsored by the government like Rural Development Agencies. This restricts the market of their products. ­

Remedial Measures

To overcome all such problem efforts are being taken by all the agencies on the following lines:

Promotional Help: To formulate project in a proper form and also in drafting project report, getting concurrences from various authorities for different purposes.

Training: Achievement of motivation and training in the particular industry are also being imparted.

Selection of Machinery and Technology: Suitable assistance in the choice of appropriate machinery and equipment must be provided.

Finance: Banks and other institutions agencies are adopting special schemes for rendering assistance women entrepreneurs. Concessions and preferences are also given to them.

Marketing Assistance: Providing information relating to the market condition, price level competition and other things too, women entrepreneurs will greatly relieve them from too much of torture.

Besides that, they too should possess certain qualities to become successful entrepreneurs by overcoming the problem as women.

Qualities of Women Entrepreneurs

To be successful, women entrepreneurs must possess the following attributes:

Even if a woman does not possess all these qualities willingness to take up business and develop entrepreneurial activities will go a long way towards equipping her for business ventures.

Types of Women Entrepreneurs

Robert Goffee and Richard Scase classify women entrepreneurs into four types:

Innovative

Conventional

Domestic

Radical

The rationale of the classification is the degree of commitment to gender role ideology and entrepreneurial ideals. The gender role ideology may be defined as the values, attitudes and personality characteristics which distinguish between the observable gender-related behaviours which differentiate the sexes (Spence and Helmreich, 1978). The gender role system in a society holds stereo-types for what males and females should be like, but it also defines many activities, tasks, behaviours and skills as being more appropriate for one sex or the other. A woman entrepreneur’s commitment to gender ideology can be measured by her concurrence to

the different sets of personality characteristics, the masculine and feminine stereo types

the different tasks and activities assigned to men and women, leading to the division of labour; and

the perception that males have a higher value than females (Wendy A.Duncan, 1989:38). Entrepreneurial ideals are d efined as a set of attitudes characterized by

belief in economic self-advancement,

adherence to individualism, and

strong support for work related excellence and profits.

There are probably more of conventional and domestic types than women of other types. The women’s movement has brought to the scene ‘innovative’ and ‘radial’ women proprietors. The upward mobility of a woman entrepreneur is to rise from the low profiting domestic type to profit-oriented innovative type.

Most of the units run by women are craft-based and do not conform to the description of an industry. What is imperative today is a strong policy back-up for the diffusion of a greater measure of technology from the large units, leading to technology up gradation of the small units. The New Industrial Policy talks of modernizing the handloom, handicrafts, village and khadi industries segment.

Given the existing state of technology and equipment, it does not ensure to the artisans or workmen, even the subsistence level of wages. The modernization as envisaged does not also guarantee marketing support or evince political will to upgrade the technology of the small sectors.

What the Government could do is to provide some technological support through research and Development between specialized institutions and the small sector. At present, most of the R&D work in institutions is divorced from what the small sector needs. It will be useful if the Government initiate steps to expand and reorient the Development Centers and the tool-room facilities providing ample scope for small women entrepreneurs to test and diversify their products.

Self Help Group-an Avenue for Women Entrepreneur

Self-help groups play a significant role for the development of individual, group and society as a whole. More thrust, needs to be given in the promotion of SHGs, their co-ordination and endurance. Without sufficient financial input, their development will not be a reality; banks and government agencies involved in the promotion and development of SHGs should make committed involvement in making this methodology of “all for all” a successful exercise and make a role model for other states too.

On the other hand, self-help groups should actively involve themselves in taking up agriculture work, waste land development, small business activity and see that the loans to the groups are properly repaid. SHGs will go a long way in the eradication of poverty and thereby improve the standard of living of the poor and rural mass.

Concept of SHG

“All for all” is the basic principle of SHGs concept. It is mainly concerned with the poor and it is for the people, by the people and of the people. Under Mahalir Thittam, the Non-government organizations (NGOs) actively participate to carry out the household survey on the basis of Participatory Rural Appraisal method. NGOs are entrusted with the task of forming Women groups (SHGs) in the village level.

The origin of SHGs is the brainchild of Gramin Bank of Bangladesh, founded by the famous economist, Prof. Mohammed Yunus of Chittagong University in the year 1975. This was exclusively established for the weaker sections of the community. The poor people can derive the benefits or linkage with various banking institutions. In India, NABARD (National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development) has taken interest to translate the benefits derived from the Bangladesh model to develop the poor through SHG in 1992 which is generally treated as finance to tiny or small industries, the most important ‘Priority Sector’ in the Indian economy.

Objectives of SHGs

To inculcate the habit of thrift and savings among group members and to get relief from the clutches of money lenders.

To develop the capacity of disadvantaged women in order to enable them to meet all social and economic barriers and thereby help them to become empowered citizens.

To attain the equality of status of women as participants, decision makers, and beneficiaries in the democratic, economic, social and cultural spheres of life.

To create democratic, economic and social process through institutions to motivate women to participate fully and actively in decision making in the family, community at the local, district, State and national level.

To empower women to associate together with men as equal partners and to create a new generation of women and men to work together for equality, sustainable development and communal harmony.

To promote and ensure the human rights of women at all stages of their life.

At present, under Mahalir Thittam the size of the groups is small, ranging between 12-20 to facilitate sustainability and not to exceed 20. The age limit for the membership will be 21 to 60. The members will all be married women and preference will be given to widows, divorcees, deserted and handicapped women and women belonging to SC/ST community. All members must be below the poverty line. The group members will meet every week for savings and payment and repayment and every fortnight for discussing all other matters. The agenda will be prepared and discussed in each meeting. The matters regarding savings, rotation of Sangha (group) funds, bank loans and repayments, and social and community action programme will be discussed in every meeting. Since the group functions in a democratic way, one animator and two representatives will be selected among the members instead of the usual president, secretary and treasurer set up. Animator will be the role model for the groups and for the village as a whole. The animator position will be rotated amongst the representatives once in every two years.

Linkage with Banks

All banks are lending the credit facilities to the SHGs members for production and consumption purposes on the condition of maintaining proper records, organising the group meetings, creating awareness about the women related issues and discussing various matters regarding village problems in every such group meetings.

The Women Development Corporation has insisted, the groups must maintain the relevant books of account in double entry book keeping system in order to facilitate audit or to verify the accounts. The grading of groups will be done taking into account the following activities; on the basis of meetings organised by the group (with minimum attendance of 75%) involvement of group meetings, quantum and number of savings per month, interest rate on internal loans, repayment of internal loans and books maintained by the groups.

If a group gets more than 55 of the total of 100 marks, Project Implementation Unit (PIU) of the Mahalir Thittam District Co-ordinating agency will recommend to the bank for getting outside credit to the women group. For the first year, groups are eligible for getting two and four times of total savings in the second year. The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has said that, twenty four thousand women groups have been formed with Membership of more than Four lakhs forty two thousand and the members have contributed more than Thirty two crores, based on which a sum of Ninety seven crores have been disbursed by the banks.

SHGs Identified with SGSY

Generally, all the government programmes are formulated for improving the economic conditions of the individual. On 1.4.99, the government of India has launched a new self-employment programme called Swarn Jayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY). It covers all aspects of self-employment, viz. organisation of the rural poor into self-help groups, their capacity building, planning of activity clusters, infrastructure build up, technology, credit and marketing.

The eradication of poverty among rural poor in a period of three years is the ultimate goal of this programmes by identifying 4 or 5 viable projects the specific area with the use of locally available resource in the district. The Gram Sabha will authenticate the list of families below the poverty line based on the Below the Poverty Line (BPL) census.

Each district will prepare project reports in respect of different activities in a specific area. The project will seek to define the different activities to be taken up, the time and cost factors, as well as the responsibility of different organisations. The banks and other financial institutions will be closely associated and involved in preparing these reports, so as to avoid delays in sanctioning of loans and to ensure adequacy of financing.

The outside credit will be provided to the group (SGSY) on the basis of project proposal submitted by the group for agricultural and allied activities. In respect of land based activities, SGSY will focus on creation and extension of members facilities to enable the small marginal farmers to take up the activities such as horticulture, floriculture etc.

The banks will provide the subsidy to the general individual beneficiaries under the integrated programme uniformly irrespective of category of area at 30% (50% for SC/ST) of the project cost subject to a ceiling of ` 7500 (` 10000 for SC/ST). For Group beneficiaries, the existing pattern of subsidy is 50% of the cost of the scheme, subject to a ceiling of 1.25 lakhs.

Hence, the basic objectives of SGSY are like that of SHGs. Now SHGs are identified as one of the sub schemes of the SGSY.

Summary

This lesson has clearly narrated the nature and scope of women entrepreneurship, strategies for developing women entrepreneurship and problems of women entrepreneurs.