WOMEN AND ENTREPRENEURIAL DYNAMICS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

The qualitative and quantitative advance of the women on entrepreneurship activity around the world represents an interesting factor to consider within the economic development and the social progress ( Minniti et al., 2005, 2006a). This exploratory work analyzes the entre- preneurial dynamics indicators of Latin American women, taking the case study from a sample of women in Chile. The indicators of entrepreneurial dynamics are taken from the data provided by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, GEM ( 2005), and a series of interviews that provide us qualitative information. The main results indicate that there are no significant differences as far as the perception of entrepreneurial dynamics between women and men who already are involved in some type of entrepreneurship activity, not thus for the women who are not in some type of entrepreneurship activity, that greater difficulties perceive to undertake. This is confirmed with the results of the interviews that indicate that even though is socially accepted that the women initiate new businesses, they are far of the opportunities and do not exist sufficient incentives to initiate a business venturing. Implications and conclusions are discussed for women entrepreneurship, like a good indicator of social development.