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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Author(s)
Shashithanganee Weerawansa
Subodha Samarasinghe
Zaheed Zameer
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DOI:10.17265/1537-1514/2018.07.004
Affiliation(s)
University of Colombo, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand
Imperial Institute of Higher Education, Colombo, Sri Lanka
ABSTRACT
Women have embarked on
their own business ventures in unprecedented numbers in recent years. They give
up lucrative jobs in the corporate sector to establish their own new
businesses. This could be due to various reasons, such as frustration at hitting the “glass ceiling”, dissatisfaction
with slow career advancement and unmet career expectations, and corporate
downsizing. They are also fulfilling personal dreams of entrepreneurship, being
their own boss, and achieving
success in business. Over the years it has been men who have been at the
forefront of the corporate business world. However, this trend has been
challenged by several successful women entrepreneurs who have made their mark
with their own success stories. Women starting their own business ventures have
grown so large, so it
is important now to understand whether their experiences are different from
those of their male counterparts. Consequently, we are learning much more about
the women who are piloting their ventures in the turbulent seas of the current
economic climate. The study is concerned on understanding what theories can be
applicable for the creation of women entrepreneurs to analyze the salient
features for such successful creations. The research area is
still in its exploratory stages, and empirical research and other relevant literature are
limited. Based on the available literature, the researcher has identified three main factors that
influence creation of entrepreneurs, which are mainly economic, socio-cultural, and physiological
approach. The research was conducted identifying 10 successful women entrepreneurs, whose businesses are
based on the non-traditional industries. They were interviewed based on the discussion guide that was
developed by the researcher and the findings were analyzed using thematic network analysis. It was seen that
theories like marginalization theory, theory of entrepreneurial profit, and
theory of occupational uncertainty have moved out from the current context of
creation of entrepreneurs and that the traits of them, building up a good
network and having an inspirational role model, have successfully carried them to where they are.
Moreover, the limitations met during the course of the research are listed and
recommendations are made based on the findings.
KEYWORDS
women entrepreneurs, glass ceiling, non-traditional industries, role theory
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