The Challenges of Growing Small Businesses - International Labour ...

employees, marketing and resources, and this picture is often applied across all women
in business.
c) Women who have limited or no experience of formal employment and business. The
literature shows women in enterprise as having limited business and managerial
experience prior to start-up. This is derived from the fact that they are concentrated in
lower paid, lower status employment (both formal and informal) that does not support
and enable them to build skills through experience. For example, in 1996 only 12 per
cent of jobs in the formal sector in Zambia were held by women (JUDAI, 2002) and
similar profiles were also reported for Tanzania (Bol, 1995) and Ethiopia (Zewde &
Associates, 2002). This lack of experience further limits women’s human assets and
their ability to access other assets.
d) Women who have limited networks especially business-related networks. The fact that
women lack networks outside of their family and close community is closely associated
with their lack of formal employment and business experience, together with
constraints placed on their mobility and ability to interact with other business people
(mostly men) arising from their domestic roles and responsibilities. Both personal and
business networks are critical for business success. Women’s limited networks and
networking reinforce women’s isolation as entrepreneurs and reduces their scope and
opportunities for building personal and business know-how and accessing other
physical and financial assets (UDEC, 2002). Furthermore, evidence from elsewhere
demonstrates that women members of employers’ organizations in the Asia-Pacific
region comprise approximately 20 per cent of the membership (Barwa, 2002).
(However, it should be noted that it is “enterprises” that are members of employers’
organizations.) In addition, in some countries chambers of commerce and employers’
organizations are perceived – rightly or wrongly – to be male dominated.
e) Women who are not highly or positively motivated towards business ownership. The
explanation commonly given for this negative attitude is that women have generally
gone into business by default. They have started enterprises when no other options
were available to them in order to overcome or alleviate their poverty, rather than
purposively pursing business ownership by choice. As the Tanzanian research noted:
It has been reported several times that women in the MSE sector detest their
experiences because they are forced into entrepreneurial activities by external factors
(UDEC, 2002, p. xv).
Similar pictures are presented in Ethiopia (Zewde & Associates, 2002).
However, it is interesting to note that the African Development Bank at its Annual
Meetings, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (June 2003), held its first workshop on African Women
Entrepreneurs (AWE), and placed the emphasis clearly on growth-oriented women
entrepreneurs, thus helping to shake off the less entrepreneurial images.
2.2.2 In summary, the above profiles tend to be the dominant pictures or stereotypes of
women entrepreneurs that emerges from the secondary research, based largely on
information from Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia. Whilst these characteristics do typify
many women entrepreneurs, in the three study countries, heretofore there has been little
examination of the prevalence of this profile, the extent to which it is used to portray all
women entrepreneurs in Africa, and the issues and problems associated with such profiles.
Consequently, an important task for the later primary research element of the WED Study
was to re-examine this commonly held profile in order to develop a better understanding of
women in business in these three countries.
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