Women's entrepreneurship from an institutional perspective: the case of Uzbekistan

“To boldly go where no [man] has gone before” - Institutional voids and the development of women's digital entrepreneurship

“…Thus, digital working allowed the women to navigate limitations in the social and cultural context which would otherwise make working in a mixedgender environment difficult. Welter (2008;, drawing on empirical analysis of female entrepreneurship in post-Soviet Uzbekistan, found that ascribed gender roles, specifically the belief that young women should stay at home until they are married, meant women's entrepreneurial ambitions were limited to home-based, low income and low growth industries. However, our findings indicate that women in Saudi Arabia use digital technology to develop a space in which they feel comfortable outside the home, and to enable the development of scalable, high growth potential businesses.…”

“…However, when these voids disappear women start to lose their advantage. As such, the far reaching and instantaneous feedback enabled by online selling may be pivotal in closing the gap in female and male entrepreneurship in both emerging and developed economies (Welter and Smallbone, 2008).…”

“…Institutional change is subsequently affected as the social and cultural norms which constrain women's entrepreneurship gradually lose significance or are directly challenged through role modelling and mentoring behaviour. While the model in Figure 1 was developed to explain the two-way interaction between women's digital entrepreneurship and the socio-cultural context in Saudi Arabia, we believe that the resulting model can be generalised and is transferable to other contexts where women are doubly constrained by gender biases and voids in the institutional context (Hedström and Weinberg, 2017); for instance, post-soviet societies with traditional gender roles for women (Welter and Smallbone, 2008).…”

Female Entrepreneurs

“…Such studies includeGray and Finley-Hervey (2005) in Morocco;Naser, Mohammed, and Nuseibeh (2009) in United Arab Emirates;Welter and Smallbone (2008) in Uzbekistan; andLjunggren and Kolvereid (1996) in Norway.…”

Women Entrepreneurship “A New Paradigm” – The Case Of Twin Cities Of Pakistan

“…Hani et al, (2012) state that women with expertise, knowledge and higher education level can create the opportunities for themselves to enter into businesses of their own. Moreover, the change in the external market also influences the women entrepreneurship in a state, by creating or removing barriers for women to enter into businesses of their own (Welter & Smallbone, 2008).…”