Behind the veil: women‐only entrepreneurship training in Pakistan

By M. Roomi, P. Harrison. 2010

127 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the gender-related challenges of Pakistani women entrepreneurs, to explore these women's particular capacity-building needs, and to assess the impact of capacity-building programs on the establishment and performance of the women's enterprises. Design/methodology/approach – The paper begins with a review of various theoretical contexts through which to understand women's entrepreneurship in an Islamic socio-cultural context. From this, the paper derived two working propositions: women in Islamic Pakistan face particular barriers to becoming entrepreneurs; these barriers can be reduced by women-only training in entrepreneurial competences. These propositions are examined in a three-part longitudinal process: a field survey to gather information about the training needs of current and potential women entrepreneurs, the design and delivery of a women-only training module, a follow-up survey with participants, 18 months later. Subjects and participants were randomly selected, and segmented according to entrepreneurial factors and characteristics. Findings – Results confirm that the barriers perceived by women entrepreneurs in Islamic Pakistan can be alleviated through women-only training that allows participants to develop capital and competences. Greater clarity about learning outcomes desired and achieved by women entrepreneurs in an Islamic socio-cultural context can be a basis for designing improved training and education programmes, with a view to women's economic empowerment. Practical implications – For women entrepreneurs living in an Islamic society, this analysis has implications for understanding the importance and effectiveness of entrepreneurial training especially in a women-only setting. For policy makers, it turns the spotlight on the need for creating an environment conducive to female entrepreneurship consistent with socio-cultural structures and gender asymmetries. Originality/value – There are no comparable previous data on the learning preferences and outcomes of this particular

Subfields: Business and International Management, Management of Technology and Innovation, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/851b03bc10fef2f5375e09ad00b483cb0b37ba9e

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Citations in the corpus

Struggling with social capital: Pakistani women micro entrepreneurs’ challenges in acquiring resources (2017, background): “Women are expected to act modestly and stay within domestic spheres, with men working outside the home (Roomi and Harrison 2010).”
Entrepreneurial capital, social values and Islamic traditions: Exploring the growth of women-owned enterprises in Pakistan (2013, background): “Only few of them receive encouragement from immediate male family members, resulting in limited spatial mobility and a dearth of social capital for others (Roomi and Harrison, 2010).”