Entrepreneurial Orientation And Performance Of Women Entrepreneurs In Somalia

Abstract

Women entrepreneurs are an important and growing force in the local economy, both in terms of the number of new enterprises and employment opportunities they represent. Somali Women owned businesses are highly increasing in the economies of almost all regions in the country. The hidden entrepreneurial potentials of women have gradually been changing with the growing sensitivity to the role and economic status in the society. The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating role of Environmental determinants on the relationship between the Entrepreneurship orientation and business performance of women entrepreneurs in Somalia. By using proportionate stratified random sampling, 314 women owner micro and small enterprises in four main regions in Somalia responded to the study. The data was collected in May-July 2013 and was analyzed using SPSS version 17.0. The findings indicated that the most motivating factor of Somali women to inter into entrepreneurship was to income generation or economic opportunity, the second factor was control and third factors was personal freedom to take their own decisions and self-employment, the study was investigated the challenges and constraints that split their entrepreneurship success, the study found that the start-up constraints were believing their entrepreneurship ability, questions of how to get financing and security and political instability in the country while still retaining the security problem after venture creation and became reality, after the starting the venture the most constraints were Combining family and work life, Liquidity and other financial problems and Freedom of mobility, this final was caused the insecurity situation in most south regions in country. The study explored the socio-cultural barriers of facing Somali women entrepreneurs, the study found that Somali women entrepreneurs face gender-based discrimination to starting and growing their business including discriminatory of commercial credits from financial instructions, face Sexual harassment from workplace, Negative social attitude towards women in business and the overall male domination in the entire business & entrepreneurship works as a hurdle for women entrepreneurs. Furthermore they face challenges from Somali culture of motherhood which gives more intention to this role and women's family obligations also bar them from initiating & becoming successful entrepreneurs because of that women would perhaps prefer to be active partner entrepreneurs with their spouses & provide necessary support rather than initiating & running a business enterprise entirely on their own. These barriers of Social and cultural are seriously obstruct the economic potential of women as entrepreneurs and have an evident negative impact on enterprise development, productivity, and competitiveness, and reduce the growth potential of the country as a whole. The study also found that entrepreneurial orientation dimensions (innovation and pro-activeness) are positive and statistically significant in the prediction of both dependent variables (financial and non-financial performance indicators), the study revealed that the three dimensions of environmental determinants; the environmental dynamism, heterogeneity and hostility are positively related to Entrepreneurial orientation of firm owned and managed Somali women entrepreneurs furthermore the findings supported the existence of moderation effect of the three dimensions of environmental determinants to EO and firm performance relationship. Recommendations, Contribution of the study, future research and implications are further elaborated.