Female Entrepreneurs motivations and constraints.

What is it about?

The paper has three aims: to identify the specific contextual constraints that women might face in becoming entrepreneurs; to correlate these constraints with the motivations that have determined this choice; to ascertain how strongly constraints and motivations are correlated with individual rewards in terms of personal satisfaction and economic payoffs.

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Why is it important?

Our analysis has shown that there are two main factors influencing female entrepreneurs to make that choice: the constraints-opportunities they face, and the motivations, skills and satisfaction they enjoy in pursuing an occupation of their own choice. The constraints-opportunities factor is linked to variables such as financial facilities, bureaucratic barriers, whether a market survey was completed before start-up, as well as to educational training and to the absence/presence of alternative employment opportunities. The motivations factor, instead, is identified by variables that relate to women’s motivations and judgement on their business experience, their knowledge of laws favouring female entrepreneurship, and to business training and education This seems to confirm, as repeatedly reported in the literature, that women entrepreneurs have different expectations than men, finding possibilities worth pursuing in activity that goes beyond monetary rewards. It has been consistently found that the main reason for gendered entrepreneurial difference stems from the fact that female entrepreneurs expect a mix of economic and non-economic rewards from their business, and, consequently, measure their success differently than do male entrepreneurs