Exploring the Risky Terrain of Entrepreneurship With Support From Developmental Relationships: Narratives From Indian Women Entrepreneurs

Abstract

The Problem There has been a burgeoning interest in studies on women entrepreneurs in the past decade, but in most studies conducted thus far, the scope has remained narrow with the focus mostly on strategic perspective and not so much on the individual-level understanding of the entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the limited number of studies that have looked into novice women entrepreneurs are restricted to western hemisphere, and to our knowledge, no study has looked into narratives on how women entrepreneurs in India benefit from various developmental relationships over the course of their entrepreneurial journey. The Solution Using narrative inquiry, we explore the stories of six urban women entrepreneurs in India illustrating how and why they started their careers in entrepreneurship, the challenges they experienced along the way, and how the varied developmental relationships they nurtured over time supported them to cope with those challenges. The Stakeholders The article aimed at venture capitalists that extend support to women entrepreneurs and to women who are considering to pursue entrepreneurship. The findings can guide them to anticipate the challenges and opportunities commonly experienced by women entrepreneurs and appreciate the value of developmental relationships that help to sustain motivation to be entrepreneurs.

Career choice, growth and well-being of women entrepreneurs’ community: insights on driving factors in India

“…Women have different motivations than their male counterparts to venture into entrepreneurship (Brush, 1992; Chaudhuri et al , 2020; De Martino and Barbato, 2003; Jennings and Brush, 2013; Kirkwood, 2009; Ramadani et al , 2015). Women engage in entrepreneurship for various reasons, categorized as “Pull” and “Push” factors (Amit and Muller, 1995).…”

“…India also fares poorly on important indexes of entrepreneurship. Among 57 countries, India ranked 52 in the 2018 Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs (Chaudhuri et al , 2020; Mathew, 2019), which considered parameters such as access to finance, advancement outcomes and ease of doing business. Although the Government of India (GOI) has taken enormous efforts toward women empowerment and development through several schemes under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), many such sponsored development activities have failed to reach all sections of women (Agarwal and Lenka, 2018).…”

What does it take to be a woman entrepreneur? Explorations from India

“…The resource dependence theory (Davis and Cobb, 2010) states that the performance of an enterprise depends on external resources such as support organizations and supportive psychosocial factors apart from internal motivations (Chaudhuri et al , 2020). This is proved in the above discussions on support mechanisms, which enable women entrepreneurs to push themselves hard to continue their dream journey (Kirkwood, 2009; Shastri et al , 2019).…”

Women entrepreneurs in India: a systematic literature review

“…Given the importance that governments of many developing countries are according to women's entrepreneurship, there has been an increase in research on women entrepreneurs (WEs) (Ahl, 2006; Brush, 1992; Cardella et al ., 2020; Nair, 2020; Ojong et al , 2021). WEs in India are making significant economic and social contributions to the country (Agarwal and Lenka, 2018; Chaudhuri et al , 2020), even as they work towards financial independence. The increase in research on women's entrepreneurship necessitates a systematic literature review (SLR) to organize the extant literature, assess the current state of research and identify future research opportunities.…”