Women entrepreneurs in Russia and other countries: a comparative perspective (original) (raw)
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Between Business and Byt: Experiences of Women Entrepreneurs in Contemporary Russia
Europe-asia Studies, 2011
This article contributes to the study of women's entrepreneurship in transition economies by examining Russian self-employed women's experiences and interpretations of gender in the context of entrepreneurship. It traces how gender articulates the opportunities for and the constraints on entrepreneurial activities in Russian society. As such, this article engages in the theoretical discussion of gendered patterns of entrepreneurship. The article employs a qualitative methodology and analyses semi-structured interviews with women entrepreneurs conducted in St Petersburg and in two towns in the Republic of Karelia during the period 2005–2006. The respondents represent small and medium-sized enterprises mainly in production, retail trade and services.
Entrepreneurial Women and the Business of Self-Development in Global Russia
If you want to understand how gender is changing in Russia, you need to talk to women in business and sales," my friend Yulia said to me as we walked through the streets of St. Petersburg one summer afternoon in 2006. I gave her a curious look. She explained, "They are on the front lines when it comes to how Russians understand womanhood." In her early thirties with a graduate degree in psychology, Yulia had just accepted a position as marketing director at a transnational advertising firm. She had left her job as an English teacher because she found her new opportunity more interesting and lucrative. Yulia's choice nevertheless presented challenges in terms of finding friends and romantic partners who respected her as a professional and as a woman. By virtue of her career in business (bisnes), she had entered a domain that Russian journalists, politicians, and people in everyday life constructed as male. Indeed, when I mentioned to Russian friends and academic colleagues that I wanted to learn about the lives of businesswomen, some volunteered that such women were "abnormal" and therefore had little to reveal about contemporary Russian issues. However, I agreed with Yulia that these women's experiences reflected how the nation's market economy has led to new social spaces for women.
Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 2013
Purpose -This paper studies female entrepreneurship in two post-Soviet countries -Russia and Ukraine. Employing institutional theory, the research aims to investigate the entrepreneurial environment, particularly government support programmes and the availability of financial resources, with a focus on women entrepreneurs. Design/methodology/approach -This research is a qualitative investigation that comprises 60 interviews with Russian and Ukrainian entrepreneurs, bank officers and representatives of government organisations supporting the development of entrepreneurship. Findings -The investigation provides evidence that these countries have overcome the transition from a command to a market economy and local people are gradually adjusting to the new environment. Concentrating on macro/meso and money elements from the 5M model suggested by Brush et al., the authors suggest an additional construct -"motherland" -to embed a context in a new model. Research limitations/implications -Only two factors of Brush et al.'s 5M model were considered -i.e. macro/meso environment and money (availability of financial resources). Discussion of management, marketing and motherhood is beyond the scope of the present paper. Practical implications -The study reveals a broad range of managerial information and empirical data on the development of female entrepreneurship in contemporary Russia and Ukraine. The findings are helpful for policymakers engaged with these two countries.
The topic of female entrepreneurship is considered by many scholars as separate field of inquiry, within broad domain of entrepreneurship research. Despite a growing interest in researching this topic, in transition countries, it remains a neglected area of study. Hence, this paper aims to fulfill the gap by bringing some empirical evidence from transitional perspective. We aim to test gender difference hypothesis across four dimensions: individual, organizational, and environmental dimension. First results indicate that the unfavorable position of women in the Kosovar society, deeply rooted in traditional behaviors is also reflected in entrepreneurial developments. Extremely low female entrepreneurial participation (8.4) and female entrepreneurial activity (3.7) prove imbalanced position of female entrepreneurs. However, it is encouraging that female business sector in Kosova is continuously growing hence this should be supported by adequate policies. With respect to gender differences we revealed that only in terms of organizational dimension the gender difference hypothesis holds.
Barriers to Entrepreneurship for Women in Ukraine. Quantitative Study. SCS Journal, 2015.
The question of this quantitative study is whether or not women who are entrepreneurs in Ukraine consider government bureaucracy, lack of business financing, lack of qualified personnel, lack of government support and low self-confidence to be significant barriers to their success as entrepeneurs. Data collected from 1000 entrepeneurs in Ukraine revealed three distinct classes of barriers to entrepreneurship. The first and foremost set of barriers were Governmental bureaucracy and support, the seocnd set relates to start-up financing and skilled labor availability and the third set relates to more personal factors such as self-confidence. Business networking skills among women entrepreneurs were identified as a key strength. We conclude the study with limitations of the study and implications of the findings for policy making and future research.
The scarcity of female entrepreneurship
UDK: 65.012.4-055.2 Izvorni znanstveni rad Primljeno: 30. 4. 2003. The main part of our paper presents an analysis of women's participation in the entrepreneurial process in the earliest stage – we were interested in gender differences with regard to the ability to create or start a new business. Our research is based on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project. The results of this analysis revealed that there are evident differences between male and female entrepreneurs in the earliest stage of the entrepreneurship process, as well as among the 37 countries included in the GEM. There are a number of factors suggesting that dissimilar processes lead to opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship, which holds for men and women, and that processes that affect female entrepreneurship are different from those affecting male entrepreneurship. Specific attention in this paper is given, primarily, to Slovenia as well as to Croatia.
In: Leo-Paul Dana, Mary Han, Vanessa Ratten, isabell M. Welpe (eds) Handbook of Research on Asian Entrepreneurship. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, pp. 265-274, 2009
This paper presents an account of the environment faced by entrepreneurs in Russia. In section one we give a brief introduction to the country which is followed by the overview of a public policy on small and medium enterprises in the next section. The current state of SMEs and some particularities of the entrepreneurial environment are discussed in section three,
2009
The aim of this paper is to examine similarities and differences between Bulgarian female and male entrepreneurs with regard to a number of personal characteristics, characteristics of their ventures, and characteristics of the environmental context, in which they operate. A sample of 501 companies (282 maleowned and 219 female-owned) with a single owner is used in the present study. Data have been analyzed using a binary logistic regression. The differences in entrepreneurship identified in this paper are strikingly similar to those reported in the literature in Western countries. This could be explained with the presence of similar gender inequalities and deeply structured processes of female subordination in capitalist, command and transition economies.
GENDER DIFFERENCES IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP: EVIDENCE FROM GEM DATA
Being a significant component of the contemporary business world, female entrepreneurial activity is considered a key element of economic growth worldwide, and especially in emerging markets. The present study explores gender differences in efficiency-driven countries based on the GEM data through correlation and regression analyses. An important finding of the paper is that training on starting a new business as a common factor, has a greater influence on female entrepreneurial activity. Therefore, training should be considered an essential issue when designing government policies and stimulating entrepreneurial activity in general, of both female and male entrepreneurs.