The Investigation into Motivations, Success Factors and Barriers Among Women Small Business Owners: An Overview of Extant Literature

Women entrepreneurship, as an object of scientific inquiries, has elicited suitable recognition among researchers during the early 1980s. However, female business owners have attracted far less attention from the academic community than their male counterparts despite their reported increasing contribution towards the economic growth of both developed and emerging nations. This article attempts to bridge this gap in knowledge by providing readers with an overview of influential international research papers that investigate some of the key issues presented in the literature about women small business management and entrepreneurship.

The studies discussed herein examine the motivation of women to establish frms; a variety of definitions of favorable performance applied in studies; the most important determinants of success in business, and the barriers encountered by businesswomen in the process of setting up as well as running their respective companies. In the final section, the author provides some future directions of research in areas touched upon in this paper that could be explored by scholars. Finally, the paper highlights key policy recommendations for decision-makers that are aimed at encouraging women to enter into entrepreneurship and fostering the growth of existing female-owned frms.