WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT - AN OVERVIEWS
M.IRUDHAYARAJ
Ph.D Research Scholar, Department of Commerce,
T.B.M.L College, Porayar-609307,
Mobil :9976143696
Dr. A. XAVIOR SELVAKUMAR
Assistant Professor and Research Advisor, Department of Commerce, T.B.M.L
College, Porayar-609 307
ABSTRACT
The women entrepreneur and improvement of their status and economic role
needs to be integrated into economic development programs, as the development of
any country is inseparably linked with the status and development of women. Given
the gender division of labour that prevails in India, Nutrition, Child health, and related
matters typically depend mostly on women’s actions and decisions. Experience has
shown that promotion of enterprise creation and income generating activities among
women would transform them from ‘being alive’ to ‘living with dignity’. One of the
powerful approaches to women empowerment and rural entrepreneurship is the
formation of Self Help Groups (SHGs) especially among women. This paper tries to
link all the pertinent points discussed above namely
entrepreneur, Enterprise,
Women Entrepreneurship, Women Empowerment, functions of an entrepreneur and
economic development on entrepreneurship
KEY WORDS
Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Women Entrepreneurship, Enterprise,
Women Empowerment, Economic Development.
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WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT - AN OVERVIEWS
INTRODUCTION
In most of the developing countries today, more and more emphasis is laid
on the need for development of women and their active participation in the main
stream of development process. It is also widely recognized that apart from
managing household, bearing children, rural women bring income with productive
activities ranging from traditional work in the fields to working' in factories or running
small and petty
businesses. They have also proven that they can be better
entrepreneurs and development managers in any kind of human development
activities. Therefore, it is important and utmost necessary to make rural women
empowered in taking decisions to enable them to be in the central part of any human
development process. The empowerment of women also considered as an active
process enabling women to realize their full identity and power in all spheres of life.
Against the background of the patriarchal system of society, the women need special
attention to ensure their development and participation in the decision making
process at home, in the community and governance. Hence what is needed is a
conducive environment to maximize their potentials. This conducive environment
should include basic amenities such as better health and nutrition, education and
sensitization to their rights and protection under the law and employment
opportunities, etc. over the decades, various strategies have been adopted to
empower rural women with some mixed results.
WHAT IS ENTREPRENEURS
An entrepreneur is a person who pays a certain price for a product to resell it
at an uncertain price, thereby making decisions about obtaining and using the
resources while consequently admitting the risk of enterprise. An entrepreneur is an
economic agent who unites all means of production- land of one, the labour of
another and the capital of yet another and thus produces a product. By selling the
product in the market he pays rent of land, wages to labour, interest on capital and
what remains is his profit. He shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and
into an area of higher productivity and greater yield. According to him entrepreneurs
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are innovators who use a process of shattering the status quo of the existing
products and services, to set up new products, new services. An entrepreneur is a
person with a high need for achievement [N-Ach]. He is energetic and a moderate
risk taker.
An entrepreneur searches for change, responds to it and exploits
opportunities. Innovation is a specific tool of an entrepreneur hence an effective
entrepreneur converts a source into a resource.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Entrepreneurship is a creative activity. It is the ability to create and build
something from practically nothing. It is a knack of sensing opportunity where others
see chaos, contradiction and confusion. Entrepreneurship is the attitude of mind to
seek opportunities, take calculated risks and derive benefits by setting up a venture.
It comprises of numerous activities involved in conception, creation and running an
enterprise. According to Peter Drucker Entrepreneurship is defined as ‘a systematic
innovation, which consists in the purposeful and organized search for changes, and
it is the systematic analysis of the opportunities such changes might offer for
economic and social innovation.’
ENTERPRISE
Entrepreneur is a person who starts an enterprise. The process of creation is
called entrepreneurship. The entrepreneur is the actor and entrepreneurship is the
act.
The outcome of the actor and the act is called the enterprise. An enterprise is the
business organization that is formed and which provides goods and services, creates
jobs, contributes to national income, exports and overall economic development.
WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS
Empowering Women has become the key element in the development of any
economy. It is been found that there are various forums and NGOs that are working
hard towards this direction. There are lots of research studies supporting this view.
The Indian Economy has been substantially liberalized in recent years with an
increasing role for small-scale private enterprise. Alongside economic liberalization
has come a drive to enhance the role of women with moves to ensure that women
have at least 30% of seats in local councils and many other elected bodies. As a
result women are playing a more important economic role.
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WOMEN EMPOWERMENT
The exact meaning of the word empowerment. According to Cambridge
English Dictionary empowerment means "to authorize". In the context of the people
they have to be authorized to have control over their lives. Links between
microfinance and women's empowerment are viewed as optimistic, limited by design,
cost effective in eliminating poverty, and a misplaced diversion of resources.
Microfinance programs range from small scale self-help groups to large povertytargeted banks. One model may vary in delivery, group functions and structures, and
complementary services. There could be 3 contrasting approaches to microfinance
and women's empowerment: the financial sustainability approach, the integrated
community development approach, and the feminist empowerment approach.
However, program evaluations revealed the need to question the assumptions
underlying all approaches. In most programs, women benefited to a limited degree.
Many women did not control the loan use. Most women were engaged in low paid,
traditionally female activities, and increases in income were small. Resources and
time invested in economic activity were limited by responsibility for household
consumption and unpaid domestic work. Microfinance programs sometimes created
domestic tension between spouses and loss of spousal income and support. Group
repayment pressures sometimes created pressures between women. Many women
focused on personal rather than social objectives.
WOMEN ARE CRITICAL FOR DEVELOPMENT
Women are central to the entire development process. There are also at the
vanguard of social transformation. For example, Grameen bank's success is based
on lending only to women. The entrepreneurs who were able to use the micro
finance made available were women. The grameen phone 'ladies' are the
entrepreneurs. There is adequate evidence from various studies undertaken so far
that the role of women in building a new society is inevitable. The SHGs at ICICI
bank are all women, as are the shakti ammas at HLL. The women are entrepreneurs
responsible for saving and accessing credit. In the case of CEMEX, the company
works only with women. Amul, a milk cooperative, depends on women for their milk
origination in villages. Women also collect the cash for the milk and therefore have
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achieved a new social status. Access to economic independence can change the
long tradition of suppression of women and denial of opportunities. The success of
Avon, Mary Kay and Tupperware in US and other parts of the world are also based
on the role of women entrepreneurship. Although the evidence is overwhelming, very
little explicit attention has been paid to actively co-operating women in the efforts to
build markets and lead the development process".
FUNCTIONS OF AN ENTREPRENEUR
An entrepreneur frequently has to wear many hats. He has to perceive
opportunity, plan, organize resources, and oversee production, marketing, and
liaison with officials. Most importantly he has to innovate and bear risk. The main
functions of an entrepreneur are as follows:
1. Innovation
Innovation is one of the most important functions of an entrepreneur
according to Schumpeter. An entrepreneur uses information,
knowledge and
intuition to come up with new products, new methods of reducing costs of a product,
improvement in design or function of a product, discovering new markets or new
ways of organization of industry. Through innovation, an entrepreneur converts a
material into a resource or combines existing resources into new and more
productive configurations. It is the creativity of an entrepreneur that results in
invention [creation of new knowledge] and innovation [application of knowledge to
create new products, services or processes.]
Systematic innovation means monitoring the following for innovative opportunity:
2. Risk and uncertainty bearing
According to Hozelist an entrepreneur performs the function of risk and
uncertainty bearing. Every decision pertaining to development of new products,
adapting new technologies, opening up new markets involves risk. Decision-making
in an environment of uncertainty requires anticipation of risk. Profit is said to be the
reward for anticipating and taking such risks. However it is pertinent to mention that
the entrepreneur is not a gambler, he only takes calculated risks. An entrepreneur
develops the art of decision-making under conditions of uncertainty as a matter of
survival.
3. Organization building
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An entrepreneur has to organize men, material and other resources. He has
to perform the functions of planning, co-ordination and control. He has to use his
leadership qualities to build a team, generate resources and solve problems. With
his organizational skills an entrepreneur builds an enterprise from scratch, nurtures it
and makes it grow. His vision sows the seeds for a sound and vibrant organization
and synergies are built in the enterprise.
According to Kilby in a developing country even the imitator entrepreneurs are
very important and the entrepreneurial role encompasses the following:

Perception of market opportunities

Gaining command over scarce resources

Purchasing inputs

Marketing the products

Dealing with bureaucrats

Managing human relations within the firm

Managing customer and supplier relations

Managing finance

Managing production

Acquiring and overseeing assembly of the factory

Industrial engineering

Upgrading process and product

Introducing new production techniques and products Check
WOMEN'S WORK PARTICIPATION
As per to 1981 figures 19.7 per cent Indian women were recorded as paid
workers. Of whom over 87 per cent were in the unrecognized or informal sector of
the economy. The work participation rate woman in 1991and 2001 was 22.3 and
25.7 per cent respectively. The increase in the work participation of women during
the decade 1991-2001 is mainly due to the increase in the proportion of marginal
workers (6.3 per cent to 11 per cent) in total female work force. It is held by many
observation of Indian economy that without women's paid or unpaid labour the Indian
agricultural economy would not be able to function. In the informal sector, there is no
legal redressal for problems; no maternity or other leave benefits and little security of
service. Working long hours as domestic servants, stitching clothes for the garment
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export industry, working on the assembly line of small electronics manufacturing
units or the beedi, tobacco, cashew nut factories. A woman lives in fear of
retrenchment, exploitation and low wages.
CHANGES IN WOMEN'S MOBILITY AND INTERACTION.
The evaluation found that women had become more mobile and begun to
have new interactions with a range of officials. There was even a growing willingness
on the part of group members to approach the Panchayats and Collectors with
petitions or grievances. In all, the evaluation found that:

50% of women group members had visited new places and travelled longer
distances; and

94% had experienced new interactions with staff of institutions such as banks,
district and block development organizations, NGOs and the project itself.
The study observes that this type of change was most likely to occur among
women group members when:

the women involved were heads of households or were older;

the women involved had participated in training;

their group members had accessed a bank loan;

their group had undertaken community action initiatives; or

their group had been organized into a federation and encouraged to
participate in special events (such as Women's Day, Rural Women's Day)
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP
The relationship between unemployment and entrepreneurship has been
shrouded with ambiguity. On the one hand, one strand in the literature has found that
unemployment stimulates entrepreneurial activity, which has been termed as a
“refugee effect”. On the other hand, a very different strand in the literature has
identified that higher levels of entrepreneurship reduce unemployment, or what has
been termed as a “Schumpeter effect”. Taken together, these two relationships result
in considerable ambiguities about the relationship between unemployment and
entrepreneurship. In this section we will discuss how business ownership rates are
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influenced by economic development. We will pay attention to the role the
“Schumpeterian regime switch” has played in this relationship. We discuss the pre1970s era of declining business ownership rates and the period thereafter in which
the rates have risen in most Western economies. The emphasis of the succeeding
sections will be on how the business ownership rate at the economy-wide level
influences the extent of structural transformation and subsequent economic growth.
Joseph Schumpeter’s contribution to our understanding of the mechanisms of
technological progress and economic development is widely recognized. In The
Theory of Economic Development he emphasizes the role of the entrepreneur as
prime cause of economic development. He describes how the innovating
entrepreneur challenges incumbent firms by introducing new inventions that make
current technologies and products obsolete. This process of creative destruction is
the main characteristic of what has been called the Schumpeter Mark I regime. In,
Capitalism, Socialism and
Democracy, Schumpeter focuses on innovative
activities by large and established firms. He describes how large firms outperform
their smaller counterparts in the innovation and appropriation process through a
strong positive feedback loop from innovation to increased R&D activities.
SUGGESTIONS
The suggestions offered here, if the policy implemented concrete terms.

Government may provide minimum support price for the products of rural
micro enterprises. It will be strengthen the viability of the micro enterprises in
the study.

Government may be provided productive equipment at subsidized rate to the
micro enterprises.

Participants also discussed how political mobilization through SHGs is also
happening and although this could be a positive thing, there is a lot of
exploitation and coercion, and tokenistic use of women and SHGs in this.

Ensure the continued availability of technology innovation and revolving fund.

Steps should be taken for the proper maintenance of accounts.

It should be ensured that neighborhood groups get loan for low interest.
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
To encourage micro enterprises and for equitable distribution and growth in
the District, the Government has to announce various concessions especially
at the backward blocks.

Avoidance of competition is linked with the income earning capacity of the
beneficiaries. Generally people avoid competition due to fear of failure. In
order to check their failure they must be imparted necessary skill in the
handling of the scheme, which in turn would generate confidence among
them.

The Governmental agencies need to increase and expand their support and
service in a proactive and liberal manner as in the rural areas, it is the
Government which has got the widest as well as most penetrating
infrastructure net work with most educated and well paid man power.

Most of the poor women are less educated and have not crossed the
boundary of general education and literacy.
CONCLUSION
These studies concluded that In recent decades the role of an entrepreneur
has been considered of very great significance in accelerating the pace of growth
and economic development in both the developed and developing countries. A
positive interaction between growth and entrepreneurship is grounded on the
innovation activity that entrepreneurs convey. Thus, a significant entrepreneurial
supply in the economy stirs up scholarly interest. The first argument in this paper
suggested that the supply of entrepreneurial activity is not independent of growth. In
this way, the discussion has supported the idea that the integration into analysis of
factors determining the individual occupational choice was very important. Under the
circumstances, relative rewards have been recognised as the variables through
which arises the end geniality of entrepreneurship and growth. The task before any
government, therefore, should be that of moving steadily and firmly in the direction of
economic development by involving women. The most important functions of an
entrepreneur are innovation, risk and uncertainty bearing and organization building.
An entrepreneur usually has to perform all the functions of production, marketing,
finance, human relations etc. especially at the time of start-up and establishing an
enterprise.
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