Women Entreprenuer Essay

1.2 History of Women Entrepreneurship:

Before the 20th century women were operating businesses as a way ofsupplementing income or in many cases they were simply trying to avoid poverty andmaking up for the loss of a spouse. The ventures that these women undertook werenot known as entrepreneurial due to the time in history and usually had to yield totheir domestic responsibilities. The term entrepreneur is used to describe individualswho have ideas for products and or services that they turn into a working business. Inearlier times this term was reserved for men. Women became more involved in thebusiness world after it was a more acceptable idea to society. This does not mean thatthere were no female entrepreneurs until that time. In the 17th

This has been proved incorrect because Gender and Development has clearly identified the role of women entrepreneurs. Now-a-days, service sector has played a significant role in providing employment opportunities to women. Besides most of women lives in semi-urban and rural areas and a lot of measures have been taken to promote women entrepreneurs. It is observed that women can establish business unitsin those areas where they have core competency. Women have proved their core competency in the areas of Information Technology (IT), management, personal careservices and health care services. Women are encouraged in these areas of business asthey have core-competency. Besides the above areas, women entrepreneurs have emerged in the new areas like data base management, designing and multi-mediaservices.

1,3 Women entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Traits

A review of the early women entrepreneurship literature produces different views on what constitutes an entrepreneur and what role the entrepreneur plays in the economic process.

Visioner: A big idea of how something can be better and different

Motivator: Womenentrepreneurs are driven to succeed and expand their business. They see the bigger picture and are often very ambitious. Entrepreneurs set massive goals for themselves and stay committed to achieving them regardless of the obstacles that get in the way.

Inventor :All entrepreneurs have a passionate

If something is not working for them they simply change. Entrepreneurs know the importance of keeping on top of their industry and the only way to being number one is to evolve and change with the times

When reviewing the different perspectives on women entrepreneurship a distinction can be made between those emphasizing the importance of entrepreneurial traits or qualities and those focusing on the behavior or activities of entrepreneurs. Within the first perspective entrepreneurship is regarded as a set of personality characteristics, whereas in the second perspective behavior rather than traits is seen as the basis for distinguishing between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs.

Within the trait approach it is argued that individual personality traits are a necessary ingredient for understanding the phenomenon of women entrepreneurship because not all people be-come entrepreneurs under the same circumstances .In this view women entrepreneurship includes characteristics, such as perseverance, creativity, initiative, propensity to take risks, self-confidence and internal locus of control. Despite its alleged importance the trait approach has been criticized by scholars, such as Gartner (1989) arguing that entrepreneurship research should focus on studying the behavioral aspects of women entrepreneurship rather than personality