INTERNAL RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT Name of the candidate: Anshu Pasricha Enrollment no. : 04515903911 Course: MBA Batch: 2011-2013 Semester: III Subject Name: Entrepreneurship & Small Business Management Subject code: MS - 207 Topic of assignment: Women Entrepreneurs
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INTERNAL RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT
Name of the candidate: Anshu Pasricha
Enrollment no. : 04515903911
Course: MBA
Batch: 2011-2013
Semester: III
Subject Name: Entrepreneurship & Small Business Management
Subject code: MS - 207
Topic of assignment: Women Entrepreneurs
Subject Teacher’s name: Dr.G B Sitaram
Date of submission: September 28, 2012
Question:
Interview two women entrepreneurs & find out whether they believe the tasks of being an
entrepreneur any different for them than for their male counterparts. What are the disadvantage
& advantage of female entrepreneur? Are these different substantial or minor?
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
The word “entrepreneur” has been derived from the French verb “enterprendre”. It means “to
undertake”. The Frenchmen who organized and led military expeditions were referred to as
“entrepreneurs”. Around 1700 A.D. the term was used for architects and contractor of public
works. In many countries, the term entrepreneur is often associated with a person who starts his
own new business. Business encompasses manufacturing, transport, trade and all other self-
employed vocation in the service sector. Entrepreneurship has been considered as the propensity
of mind to take calculated risk with confidence to achieve predetermined business objectives.
There are many views and opinions on the concept of entrepreneurship forwarded by some of the
world famous management gurus and economists as mentioned below which will help in
understanding this concept. Entrepreneur is one who understands the market dynamics and
searches for change respond to it and exploit it as an opportunity.
The entrepreneurship is very an old concept according to which anyone who runs business is called
an entrepreneur. The more precise meaning of entrepreneur is; one who perceives a need and then
brings together manpower, material and capital required to meet that need. The entrepreneur is the
one who undertakes to organize, manage, and assume the risks of a business. In recent years
entrepreneurs have been doing so many things that it is necessary to broaden this definition.
Today, an entrepreneur is an innovator or developer who recognizes and seizes opportunities;
converts those opportunities into workable/marketable ideas; adds value through time, effort,
money, or skills; assumes the risks of the competitive marketplace to implement these ideas; and
realizes the rewards from these' efforts.
The entrepreneur is the aggressive catalyst for change in the world of business. He or she is an
independent thinker who dares to be different in a background of common events. The literature
of entrepreneurial research reveals some similarities, as well as a great many differences, in the
characteristics of entrepreneurs. Chief among these characteristics are personal initiative, the
ability to consolidate resources, management skills, a desire for autonomy, and risk taking. Other
characteristics include aggressiveness, competitiveness, goal-oriented behavior, confidence,
opportunistic behavior, intuitiveness, reality-based actions, the ability to learn from mistakes,
and the ability to employ human relations skills.
Entrepreneurship consists in doing things that are not generally done in the ordinary course of
business routine; it is essentially a phenomenon that comes under the wider aspect of leadership.
In entrepreneurship, there is agreement that we are talking about a kind of behavior that includes:
(1) initiative taking, (2) the organizing or reorganizing of social economic mechanisms to turn
resources and situations to practical account, and (3) the acceptance of risk of failure.
Entrepreneurship is the dynamic process of creating incremental wealth. This wealth is created
by individuals who assume the major risks in terms of equity, time, and/or career commitment of
providing value for some product or service. The product or service itself may or may not be new
or unique but value must somehow be infused by the entrepreneur by securing and allocating the
necessary skills and resources.
Entrepreneurship is the result of three dimensions working together: conducive framework
conditions, well-designed government programs and supportive cultural attitudes. Across these
three perspectives of entrepreneurship, two major conclusions are apparent. Firstly, the
economic, psychological and sociological academic fields accept that entrepreneurship is a
process. Secondly, despite the separate fields of analysis, entrepreneurship is clearly more than
just an economic function.
WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP:
“Women Entrepreneurship” means an act of business ownership and business creation that
empowers women economically, increases their economic strength as well as position in society.
Hence women-entrepreneurs have been making a considerable impact in all most all the
segments of the economy which is more than 25% of all kinds of business. In India
“Entrepreneurship” is very limited amongst women especially in the formal sector, which is less
than 5% of all the business.
The emergence of entrepreneurs in a society depends to a great extent on economic, social,
religious, cultural and psychological factors prevailing in the society. In many of the advanced
countries of the world there is a phenomenal increase in the number of self-employed women
after the world war. In U.S women own 25% of all business, even though there sales on an
average are less than 2/5th of those of other small business groups. In Canada, 1/3rd of small
business are owned by women and in France, it is 1/5th. In U.K., since 1980, the number of self-
employed women has increased 3 times as fast as the number of self-employed men. They have
made their mark in business for the following reasons highlighted below:
They want to assume new and fresh challenges and opportunities for self-fulfillment.
They want to prove their personalities in innovative, daring and competitive jobs.
They want to undertake changes to control the balance between their families responsibly
and business obligations.
Problems Associated With Women Entrepreneurs:
Basically all women entrepreneurs almost suffer from two main category of problems, such
problems can be designated as follows:- 1) Specific Problems 2) General Problems.
The first category of problems affect women specifically in their smooth operations of enterprise
while the other category of problems have a general or over-all effect on the enterprises owned
by such group of women entrepreneurs. Over-all these problems can be summed up as under:
Problem of Finances arrangement: Finance is said to be the “life blood” of every
business undertaking, be it large or medium or small scale enterprise. Usually women
entrepreneurs face the problems of shortage of finance on two important grounds. Firstly,
women do not generally have property on their own names to use that as collateral
securities for obtaining loans/funds from banks and other financial institutions. Thus their
access to external sources is very limited .Secondly, the banks also consider women less
credit worthy and discourage women borrowers on the belief that they cannot repay back
the amount of loans taken by them.
Scarcity of raw materials required for productive capacities: They have to even face
the problems of scarcity of raw-materials and necessary inputs. On the top of this, is the
high prices of raw materials, on one hand and getting raw materials at minimum discount
rates are the other.
Cut-throat competition with other group of men and established self-sufficient
entrepreneurs: Women entrepreneurs do not have a proper organizational set-up to
pump in a lot of money for canvassing and advertisements. Thus they have to face a stiff
competition with the men entrepreneurs who easily involve in the promotion and
development area and carry out easy marketing of their products with both the organized
sector and their male counterparts. Such a competition ultimately results in the
liquidation of women entrepreneurs.
Limited mobility factor in case of women entrepreneurs: Unlike men, women
mobility in India is highly limited due to many factors/reasons. A single women asking
for room is still looked with suspicion. Cumbersome exercise involved in starting with an
enterprise coupled with officials humiliating attitude towards women compels them to
give up their spirit of surviving in enterprise altogether.
Family responsibilities, ties as well as commitments: In India, mainly a woman’s duty
is to look after her children and manage the other members of the family. Man plays a
secondary role only. In case of married women she has to strike a fine balance between
her business and family. Her total involvement in family leaves little or almost no time or
energy to be diverted for the business activities. Support and approval of husbands seems
to be necessary condition for women entry into business. Accordingly, the educational
level and family background of husbands also influences women participation in the field
of enterprise.
Lack of education and prevalent levels of illiteracy amongst women: In India, around
3/5th (60%) of women are still illiterate. Illiteracy is the root cause of socio-economic
barriers or hurdles. Due to lack of education and that to qualitative education, women are
not aware of business, technology and market knowledge. Also lack of education causes