Title: Female entrepreneurship and the role of customer knowledge development, innovation outcome expectations and culture on intentions to start informal business ventures

Authors: Vanessa Ratten

Addresses: Department of Management, La Trobe Business School, La Trobe University, Kingsbury Drive Bundoora, 3086, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract: Informal businesses comprise a large proportion of overall new ventures pursued by entrepreneurs and are often favoured by female entrepreneurs due to their flexible nature and financial potential. The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of female entrepreneurs who are intending to start an informal business by focusing on the role of knowledge and innovation. Drawing from prior research on female entrepreneurship and the informal economy, this paper develops a number of research propositions. The paper proposes that innovation outcome expectation, customer knowledge development, risk averseness, polychronism and collectivism impact on the intention of female entrepreneurs to start informal businesses. These research propositions highlight important gender issues in entrepreneurship that need to be understood by policymakers and government authorities when looking into business development activity. The paper also provides important practical implications that can be used to inform entrepreneurs and suggest avenues for future research.

Keywords: gender entrepreneurship; female entrepreneurs; women entrepreneurs; informal business; informal entrepreneurship; informal economy; polychronism; collectivism; risk averseness; customer knowledge development; innovation outcomes; culture; intention to start; informal ventures; business ventures; new ventures.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2016.073977

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2016 Vol.27 No.2/3, pp.262 - 272

Received: 23 Jan 2015
Accepted: 30 Jan 2015
Published online: 31 Dec 2015 *

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