Woman Entrepreneurship in the Al-Batinah Region of Oman: An identification of the Barriers (original) (raw)
WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN OMAN
Conference: 50th World Conference of the International Council for the Small Business (ICSB), June 15-18, Washington, DCAt: Washington, DC, 2005
In the Middle East countries and specially the AGCC countries (Arab Gulf Cooperation Council consisting of Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait), the process of participation of the women in enterprise and businesses has been given due attention in the recent past. The long term development strategy, “Vision 2020” adopted by Oman has provided an encouraging environment for women entrepreneurs to participate and contribute towards this effect. Availability of education, training and awareness has helped Omani women to emancipate in recent past, and resultantly, Oman has a significant number of women entrepreneurs in the male dominated Arab society. In Oman, two main programs namely “Fund for Development of Youth Projects” and the “SANAD” Program have been launched in recent years to promote entrepreneurship for both men and women. The Youth Fund was established in 1999 and it encourages young Omani men and women to start small and medium enterprises. This program has been successful to some extent in attracting young entrepreneurs. The SANAD program was started in the year 2001, its main objective is to speed up the process of Omanization by creating self employment opportunity. This program has attracted a significant number of women who are interested in establishing their micro-enterprise. Training and development plays important role in making women entrepreneurs successful. “Intilaaqah” program was established in 1995 by Shell Oil Co. in Oman to provide training, counseling and consultancy and its role in supporting women entrepreneurs has been very encouraging with its limited resource.
Barriers to rural women entrepreneurs in Oman
Purpose: Analyses barriers confronted by women entrepreneurs living and running businesses in rural Oman. The study identifies numerous problems including: accessing funding for new ventures and innovative activities, a lack of skills based training and limited family support. Design/methodology/approach: Draws on 57 responses to a semi-structured questionnaire, and face to face qualitative interviews with five women entrepreneurs. Quantitative responses are evaluated and ranked in terms of their mean score, standard deviation and the intensity of each factor. Five qualitative cases are presented. Findings: Although Oman is arguably one of the more progressive Arab countries regarding gender equality and women empowerment, the findings identify socio-cultural issues that hamper women’s entrepreneurial ventures and their success. The findings are discussed using three dimensions of entrepreneurship identified by Wenneker and Thurik (1999): conditions leading to entrepreneurship, characteristics of entrepreneurship and outcomes of entrepreneurship. Practical Implications: Suggests that Omani policy makers should consider how to better support women entrepreneurs so that they can diversify household income and contribute to the socio-economic development of the region and make suggestions on how this can be achieved. Originality/Value: Research on rural women entrepreneurship in the context of an Arab country is scarce. This study provides an overview of the obstacles, the opportunities and the support required for the development of the rural women entrepreneurship in this region. Keywords: Rural entrepreneurship, Omani women entrepreneurs, Oman Paper type: Research paper
2016
The study is a questionnaire based purposive sampling of 100 respondents in Oman. The Arab world is a patriarchal society with unwritten rules and the objective of the study is to uncover the opportunities available to Omani women and the obstacles which they face as an entrepreneur as well as in the process of becoming an entrepreneur. The study also looks into the basic differences in the perception of women who are entrepreneurs and women who would like to become entrepreneurs in the future. Analysis of variance is used for hypothesis testing. Factor analysis is used to explore the motivational factors, obstacles faced and success factors of women entrepreneurs and future entrepreneurs in Oman.
Reducing Barriers to Female Entrepreneurship in Oman: Does Family Matter
Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, 2022
Previous research has found that family characteristics influence an offspring's entrepreneurial potential and perception of the barriers to entrepreneurship. This research extends this proposition to women in Oman to determine whether family income, entrepreneurship/business experience and family size influences women's perception of barriers to entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on primary data that was collected through a structured questionnaire from 123 female respondents at an Omani private university. The data was analysed using PCA, correlation and regression analysis to determine the influence of the family characteristic on the perception of barriers to entrepreneurship. Findings The findings concluded that the three family characteristics being tested were not able to predict a change in the perception of barriers to entrepreneurship. This contradicts previous research conducted in Western contexts and highlights potential weakness in family support for female entrepreneurship in Oman. Originality This research addresses the paucity of studies about female entrepreneurship in developing countries. The results challenge some of the extant findings in the literature, thus enriching the current perspectives on female entrepreneurship and the impact of Omani family characteristics, in terms of income, economic background, and family size, on the perception of barriers that hinder entrepreneurship among female students.
Women Entrepreneurship in Gulf Region
International Journal of Asian Business and Information Management
Women are restricted to make any type of business activity, contact outside the family and face other socio-cultural barriers in most of the Gulf countries. Until very recently, the importance of entrepreneurial business, women in business and its contribution to the national economy has been less examined and feels relevant for economic development. This article tries to explore and provide relevant and focused information on the characteristics, contributions and challenges faced by entrepreneurial women in Gulf countries. Several reforms have been done in Gulf countries to bring entrepreneurs into the main stream and affected their upsurge, extension, performance and interest highlighted in this article. Research focuses on empirical evidence to support the analysis highlighting the quantitative measure for the issues of gender differentials in entrepreneurial activities in Middle East countries
Entrepreneurial Preferences in Oman: A Gender-based differentiation Analysis
2021
The research objective was to critically analyze the factors responsible for the gender differences in Oman Entrepreneurship and to critically analyze the prevailing gender differences amongst the motivating factors and the survival factors in running the businesses in Oman. Design/methodology/approach: The research data was collected using a well-structured questionnaire and the data was obtained personally. 381 samples were collected from the population who were reported to be successful entrepreneurs. The selection was obtained from the entrepreneurs' list provided by the Government Scheme Agencies in Oman like SANAD/RIYADA and the analysis was done using SPSS. Findings: The study revealed that both genders considered 'To obtain a social status', 'To use innovative ideas', 'To become own boss', and 'Success of other entrepreneurs' as the motivating factors. Further, males have also considered experiences and professional contacts whereas females have considered working independently and excelling with their self-confidence. The study also revealed that both genders insisted on Start-up capital, Selfconfidence, Working capital, and Previous business experience, and Religious consciousness factors as the essential factors to run the businesses. Further, male entrepreneurs considered Training as one of the factors required to run the business whereas the female entrepreneurs considered the Right choice of location as a required factor. Research limitations/implications: It is recommended to address the gender differences of entrepreneurship in policies to support private-sector development in Oman and to design effective Entrepreneurship education programs for the future. It is required to follow up on the performance of the female-owned entrepreneurial start-ups so that their goals and objectives can be successfully fulfilled during their life cycle. It is also suggested that the training should be considered essential when designing strategies and policies stimulating entrepreneurial activity for both male and female entrepreneurs. Social Implications : Through gender differences, the trends in marketing can be identified which will help to raise awareness for how to improve global marketing standards. Facilitating timely finance in the form of startup capital, working capital is a must as the entrepreneurs in Oman consider financial assistance as a must to run the business. Previous business experience or educating them to gain experience in the line of their business interest will enable the entrepreneurs to become successful entrepreneurs. Originality / Value: There is no study on gender differences that have been carried out in Oman within entrepreneurial activities. This paper examines the gender difference prevailing amidst entrepreneurship in Oman. This research included only the successful entrepreneurs who were advanced under the Governmental Schemes through RIYADA/SANAD, Oman.
Exploring the Dynamics of Women Entrepreneurship : A Case Study of UAE
2019
This study explores the dynamics of women entrepreneurs in the context of the United Arab Emirates. A review of the entrepreneurial environment and female entrepreneurship in UAE was first carried out through an analysis of extant literature and the exploration of personal characteristics and motivations with data drawn from 178 female entrepreneurs. The results of factor analysis show that self-determination, desire for change, crave for family life balance, occupational f lexibility, work responsibility, career advancement, and independence were the most important attributes for women entrepreneurs. Further, the result shows that majority of female entrepreneurs are less likely to settle down with their family before they decide to become entrepreneurs. In terms of education, majority have at least secondary education and some even post-graduate qualifications. In conclusion, women entrepreneurs should not be treated as a monolithic category: rather, policies and programs to suppo...
Dissertation, 2019
This dissertation serves as a contribution to the existing research surrounding female entrepreneurship in the middle east, it offers a different approach to understanding the entrepreneurial journeys of women in the Middle East. Majority of preliminary research on the topic takes a quantitative approach, hence the researcher decided to conduct the research following a qualitative approach. Women have been able to describe their own individual experiences, by supplying their opinions and detailed stories. 10 women were interviewed, allowing the researcher to investigate and examine the factors encouraging and affecting them and explaining the mechanisms they explored in order to combat any drawbacks. The findings of this analysis has suggested some of the factors encouraging them into entrepreneurship are; the desire to be self-sufficient, passion for the industry they are venturing into, the availability of family support in some cases and the desire to provide quality service provisions. Another factor was flexibility as being an entrepreneur gave them the opportunity to work at home with hours that suited them, especially those that had children. The findings also uncover some of the factors that somewhat impeded their journey. Upon analysis of the intricate details of each interview, gender cultural stereotypes seemed to have been a prominent issue majority of the women faced, which in turn affected some of the starter points of them venturing into entrepreneurship. A few of the women also disclosed some religious implications that impacted the content in which they shared, for those that were using social media, family was another issue raised for the more mature participants, as juggling being a parent and also fulfilling requirements for starting their businesses proved difficult for some of the women. An interesting find was discovered in regards to the demographic of the women as women who were younger had less negative experiences venturing into entrepreneurship and also all of them adopted social media to boost their entrepreneurial activities. Recommendations discussed women leveraging male partnerships to aid in business and combating gender cultural stigmatizations, another recommendation encouraged female empowerment initiatives and successful female entrepreneurs providing training and support for other women. Additionally, user paid advertisements to leverage the maximum benefits of social media were also suggested.
Women Entrepreneurship in the UAE: Factors of Motivation and Drive
International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, 2018
Women's entrepreneurship is a topic that has acquired special relevance recent years in the United Arab Emirates. More and more often UAE mass media mention successful female entrepreneurs, businesswomen, owners of companies, outstanding managers. There are a number of organizations across the UAE that unite active business women and company female executives. Undoubtedly, women's entrepreneurship along with the general characteristics of the whole entrepreneurial process in the region has its own distinctive features at the present time. This paper is both qualitative and quantitative in nature tries to examine the role of women in the UAE's modern society by presenting collected empirical evidences from the target group to validate the claim that female entrepreneurship has extensive economic value. Thus, the paper argues on scientific analysis of existing theoretical approaches to the development of women's entrepreneurship; comparing socioeconomic motivation and factors of women entrepreneurs and assessing the prospects for the development of mass women's entrepreneurship in the UAE. Based on SPSS factor, regression and correlation analysis, the study proved and expanded a validated model that with impeccable tactical and strategic approach, identified influential and motivational factors, the female entrepreneurship can be more encouraged with larger statistics of innovations and more active role in the society for adoption of innovations.