A Proposal for a Standard With Innovation Management System

Thomas Domboka
What seemed apparent with those women who were educated to degree level is that their degrees
were in areas that were not relevant to their business. For some of these women, they obtained the
degrees in order to qualify for post study work visas. They used their education as a means to settle
permanently in the country and after they had achieved that goal, they then started doing things they
had wanted to do i.e. starting their own businesses in areas that were sometimes not related to their
qualifications. This was particularly evident in those women who obtained degrees in teaching,
nursing and in social work. They knew these were areas with high demand and easy to obtain work
permits. After they obtained their permanent residence, they left those professions for reasons like not
enjoying the job or simply because ‘that is not what I had always wanted to do’.
Previous experience; as discussed earlier in the literature review, human capital is not confined to the
amount of qualifications and training one has acquired, but other factors such as the amount of
experience one has usually obtained through formal work experience or experience in running their
own businesses or exposure to the businesses run by family members. For example if an individual
was brought up and exposed to the business run by their parents they are likely to has acquired some
business skills. In the study, this form of human capital was found to be an important factor for some
of the women as Carter et al., (2002) posited that human capital is derived from education, training
and work experience and from an entrepreneurial standpoint, work experience has three important
dimensions namely industry, management and start-up. As figure 2 clearly shows, 86 per cent of the
women had previous experience when they started their businesses, 46 per cent from previous
employment and 40 per cent from experience in running their own businesses or family businesses.
Only 14 per cent of the women in the sample did not have any form of experience when they started
their businesses.
Figure 2: Experiences bought into the business
Apart from previous experience, another element of human capital is the personal attributes such as
perception of risk, attitude towards owning a business, self -esteem or confidence, self-efficacy and
according to Gatewood et al, (1995), having the right cognitive orientation increases the individual’s
ability to start their own business. In the study, the majority of the women showed a high degree of
confidence and very positive about being able to own businesses though their perception of risk
varied with the majority showing signs of risk aversion in making certain key decisions.
Post educational training; the nature of education and training and the type of skills acquired also
count towards accumulation of human capital. As revealed in the literature review section, greater
amounts of human capital is believed to increase the likelihood of discovering entrepreneurial
opportunities and the greater the level of education of an individual, the better their perception or selfefficacy
and confidence in their knowledge and skills to start their own business and, the greater their
likelihood to start their own businesses. Evidence from the study (figure 3) shows that the
overwhelming majority (80 per cent) of the women had undertaken some form of training much of
which is related to the businesses they run. The remaining 20 per cent did not receive any form of
training before they started their businesses. For those who had received training prior to starting their
businesses, the training was done in the in the UK. The women took advantage of the numerous
training opportunities available in their host country much of which is offered free or at subsidized
rates.
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