Woman Entrepreneurship in the Al-Batinah Region of Oman: An identification of the Barriers (original) (raw)
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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