Women in business and social media: Implications for female entrepreneurship in emerging countries

Abstract

The aim of this study is to carry out a literature review on women in business and social media in order to know the state of the art, and to understand whether and to what extent the studies conducted so far have addressed these issues: how and why are women entrepreneurs and managers using social media? Do they use social media for marketing, networking or personal reasons? The article relies on a literature review about women entrepreneurs/managers and social media. For this purpose, a literature search on Scopus has been carried out, using a set of selected keywords. Selected papers have been analysed and classified in an attempt to identify main topics, and results obtained thanks to research and analysis carried out so far. This study contributes to the expansion of literature on women in business studies, and offers a new perspective applied to a topic of high relevance such as social media. The study literature review puts in evidence that this is a new issue, which gives us the possibility to identify new trends and future directions for research. Surprisingly, none of the extracted papers concerning how and why women in business use social media refer to developed economies. The common feature of these papers is that they concern women entrepreneurs in emerging economies, mainly Kenya, Indonesia, Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa. In these countries, social media can open up new opportunities for female entrepreneurs, and encourage the creation of new businesses run by women, thanks to their flexibility and their attributes. The major implication is to advance knowledge and practice in the area of gender in management and use of social media by focusing on empirical research, theoretical developments, practice and current issues. Benefits are related to a better understanding of the debate on "gender and management" themes by reconsidering networking activities with social media.

“Distinguished” women entrepreneurs in the digital economy and the multitasking whirlpool

“…Research suggests that developed and developing nations alike have come to understand that women's entrepreneurial activities contribute to socioeconomic growth and sustainable development. The 21st century research examined in this study-as that of the late 20th century-highlights three major gender gaps in entrepreneurship (participation gap, pay gap and leadership gap), in addition to the work-life imbalance, while still arguing that further research is needed, and this for a topic extensively researched since the mid 1980s (Carlsrud & Olm, 1986 et al) and repeatedly associated with concepts of empowerment and leadership.…”

“…Older studies focusing primarily on Western societies, provided critical overviews on women's entrepreneurial activities and small business ownership, while discussing (1) motives for starting or leading a business; (2) female leadership styles, management skills and strategies; (3) social expectations or gender barriers, including the work-family conflict; (4) satisfying personal-individual needs while running a business; (5) women's choices resulting from changing sociocultural dynamics; and (6) the characteristics of the successful female and male entrepreneur or business-owner. With regard to the latter, researchers tended to compare women to men, frequently concluding that women are more similar to men than they are different, in terms of both demographic and psychological characteristics, and that successful women entrepreneurs are similar to men in terms of innovation, vision, risk-taking, competitive skills, persistence, goal setting and leadership (Carlsrud & Olm, 1986;Chaganti, 1986;Neider, 1987;Hisrich & Brush, 1987;Phizacklea, 1988;Smeltzer & Fann, 1989;Fagenson & Marcus, 1991;Buttner, 1993;Ferguson & Durup, 1997).…”

The Role of Social Media in Promoting Indonesian Women’s Online Entrepreneurship: Prospects, Challenges and Strategies

“…The second prospect of using social media in online entrepreneurship is it offers a business to expand through widespread social networking which can be considered as a better way to gain new customers. Additionally, social networking cites offers s a voice related to design, promotion, products, and supports (Francesca et al, 2017b). In this sense, social media provide accessible ways to upload products, write information, contact s and many more.…”

“…Further, Bobrowska & Conrad investigate the portrayal of Japanese women entrepreneurs in business press from 1990 to 2014 in which women are positioned as inferior in discourse of entrepreneurship and social order (Bobrowska & Conrad, 2017). In conjunction with social media, the literature review about women entrepreneurs and social media which can bring some opportunities for creating new businesses, flexibility and their attributes (Francesca et al, 2017a). Interestingly, entrepreneurs and innovators nowadays have had a great impact on exploration, education, development of productivity (Abouzeedan et al, 2010).…”

Penggunaan Media Online Untuk Bisnis Online Pemula Pada Penderita Hiv

“…Bahkan di negara negara berkembang, media social dapat menjadi peluang bagi kaum wanita untuk menjadi pengusaha. (Francesca, Paola, & Paola, 2017).…”