CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
This chapter provides the conclusions of the findings of this study based on the data analysis.. This chapter also presents research and practical implications, limitations and suggestions for future research.
Conclusions
The main objective of this study was to discover which are the factors affecting female entrepreneurs in MSEs in Honduras. According to the research questions of this study the main findings of this study are the following. To answer the first question it was found that the majority of the female entrepreneurs in Honduras are between the ages of 31 and 50 years old, married and with 2 dependents. Most of them have completed their university and have received training and have between 0 to 12 years of work experience. Regarding the second question of the characteristics of their ventures, most of them are local, micro enterprise, found in the handcraft industry and have been in existence for more than one year.
In previous studies factors like motivations (economic, personal, social), networks (perceived support from women associations, perceived support from mentors), human capital (business skills, level of education, the influence of the area of education and work experience) and some demographics have been found to affect female entrepreneur performance. In this study these factors were studied and a new environmental factor (perceived government support, country insecurity) was included.
After testing the model, some hypotheses were supported. With regard to the third research question, from human capital only the influence of the area of education and business skills have an effect on female entrepreneur performance. To answer the fourth research question, from the motivational factors only economic and personal motivations were found to have a positive effect on performance, the first one being the most significant.
Regarding the fifth research question, from the network factors only perceived support from mentors was found to have a significant effect on performance. To answer the sixth research questions, contrary of what was hypothesized none of the environmental factors had an effect on female entrepreneur performance. With regard to the final research question, of the examined demographic variables, not consistent with other studies, age and family size didn’t have any significant effect on performance, only business sector did.
Research Implications
For this type of study it is important to take into consideration the situational factors and context of one country compared with other countries. Since Honduras is a developing country, those characteristics of developing countries should be considered.
In previous studies, networks were found to be a factor having a positive effect on female entrepreneur performance. In this study, of the network factors only perceived support from mentors were found to have a positive and significant effect on these women’s business performance, perceived support from women associations had a negative effect. Since most of their businesses were one year old, for future research it would be better to have other criteria regarding the age of the business, and also it would be important to know for how long they have been part of these associations to have a better understanding of the support provided.
Even though the researcher tried to avoid the women associations’ participation during the process of filling out the questionnaires, future researchers could find a better method for collecting the data to avoid any biases.
In this study the researcher used both objective and subjective measures for performance. None of the objective measures could be used in this study since for revenues
respondents haven’t had any growth since most of their businesses are approximately one year old. So this could imply that for future research other measures of performance could be used.
Practical Implications
In Honduras there are many female entrepreneurs who by creating jobs contribute to the economic development of the country. There have not been many studies done on female entrepreneurs in Honduras. As this study showed even though not all of the factors affect their performance there are several factors that are affecting these women’s ventures, so the government and different organizations that provide aid to them must be aware.
In Honduras the majority of the female entrepreneurs’ ventures are found in the micro sector and most of them seek for support from different women associations and mentors.
With a mean of 5.39 in this study, it can be seen that most of the respondents have a good perception of the support provided by mentors. This shows that they rely on mentors to help them for advice on their businesses, so mentors can share their knowledge with them and for encouragement and motivation. Since this is helping these women to have more successful businesses, those mentors or organizations that provide mentorship should continue working hand by hand with them.
Most of the respondents belong to the Chamber of Commerce, and the results show a negative effect of women associations on performance. Even though they offer a lot of services to the female entrepreneurs, it could be important for them to focus more on their mentorship programs. It has been shown in the results that the female entrepreneurs have a good perception of the support provided by the mentors and that it has helped them achieve a better performance. So, it is possible if the Chamber of Commerce made more efforts to strengthen this type of assistance, it would be of more help to the female entrepreneurs.
Since in this study economic motivation was strongly significant with performance and personal motivations was also significant, it is important for female entrepreneurs to be highly motivated to start a new business. Results showed that with a strong motivation there could be a positive and significant effect on performance. Probably by working with mentors these female entrepreneurs can become more motivated.
Almost all of the respondents believed that the support given by the government was not enough; results show a mean of 2.25. They felt that the government doesn’t have flexible policies supporting MSEs. They also perceive that the government does not make aware the trainings and loans they offer. (Callejas & Yeh, 2013). Government entities should be more aware of how these women perceive their support and try to make more noticeable the aid they can provide. They can even work together with the different organizations so they can provide a more efficient aid.
Limitations
Due to a lack of a census of female entrepreneurs in micro and small businesses in Honduras, the sample used in this study were only those women who were part of either the Chamber of Commerce or Vital Voices, therefore the results may not be generalized. Since these organizations were the mediators to help contact the respondents and to distribute the questionnaires, some biases could exist.
Even though the response rate was of 50%, obtaining a great number of samples was difficult due to the fact that all these women are scattered around the country, and collecting the data depended on when these female entrepreneurs had meetings in these organizations.
Another limitation was that the only way the researcher could collect the data was through these two organizations. Moreover, the majority (96%) of the respondents are found in the
micro size businesses, thus the results may not be generalized to the whole female entrepreneur community.
Due to the fact that revenues at startup and current were asked to calculate one of the objective measures of performance, but only approximately 61% and 56% answered the questions regarding this issue, this measure could not be used as a measure of performance.
Another limitation was that during the exploratory factor analysis, one dimension of the networks factor had to be deleted due to cross loadings. This could have happened because of the fact that the researcher had to develop the scale instead of using an already validated one.
Suggestions for Future Research
Future studies on female entrepreneur performance should explore different factors besides the ones in this and previous studies. Since there are no studies conducted on Latin America, it would be interesting to make a comparison of characteristics of the entrepreneurs, their businesses and the factors affecting their performance between different countries, especially in the Central American region. It could also be interesting to make a comparison between ventures owned by men and female entrepreneurs to understand why they seem to be less successful than those owned by men.
It has been shown that in Honduras, the micro, small and medium enterprises are important for the country’s economy. Thus, future research could be done on the role of these female entrepreneurs in developing countries. Also since this study only focuses on those female entrepreneurs found in micro and small enterprises, future studies can be done in larger scale enterprises. In this study results showed that being part of networks is important for the performance of these women’s ventures, thus a more thorough future research could be done on the importance of networks.
After knowing which factors are affecting female entrepreneur’s performance in Honduras, research could be done on what or how to help these business owners become more successful. Research could also be done on success factors of female entrepreneurs.
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