Women Entrepreneurs: Profile, Business Motivation and Success Measures in Urban and Rural context

The study reported on here contributes to the literature on female entrepreneurship that has emerged from the 1980s onwards. This theme is gradually becoming a major focus of attention among academics, politicians, policy-makers and other stakeholders involved in the sphere of entrepreneurship. The recent work of Carter and Shaw (2006) and Holmquist and Carter (2009) provide comprehensive and perceptive contextualisation of the key issues surrounding female entrepreneurship. Despite the fact that more recent studies of female entrepreneurship have helped to identify the factors motivating women to establish their own firms and those determining their entrepreneurial success, few analysts have attached importance to the businesswoman's profile and the influence that urban versus rural contexts may have on start-up decisions and subsequent business performance and success measures. The present study attempts to fill a part of this lacuna by focusing simultaneously on these important but under-researched dimensions. This study aims to characterize and relate the profile, motivations, success measures and environment of the entrepreneurial women. Data was gathered using a questionnaire survey of urban and rural women entrepreneurs in Portugal. In order to validate the theoretical model linking the effect of psychological and cognitive factors (profile) and their self-reported motivations propensity to establish their own firms with their success measures and to the urban/rural nature of the business environment, structural equation models (SEM) with AMOS 20.0 were employed. The study suggests that the motives compelling women to become entrepreneurs in rural contexts is distinct from those underpinning the decisions of urban women i.e. that there exists a correlation between motivation, success measures and business environment that in turn positively influences a woman's decision to establish her own firm. It also suggests that there is a correlation between cognitive factors and motivation and between these and success measures. The women entrepreneurial profile directly and indirectly influences the success measures.