J. International Business and Entrepreneurship Development, Vol. 12, No.

1, 2019 67

Factors affecting the performance of women

entrepreneurs in SMEs: a case study of Punjab,
Pakistan

Hafiz Yasir Ali

Department of Management Sciences,
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology,
Sahiwal, Pakistan
Email: h.yasir206@yahoo.com

Muhammad Khalid Khan

Hailey College of Commerce,
University of the Punjab,
Lahore, Pakistan
Email: khanpu@yahoo.com

Muhammad Asrar-ul-Haq*
Department of Management Sciences,
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology,
Sahiwal, Pakistan
Email: asrar.uiuc@gmail.com
*Corresponding author

Abstract: Women entrepreneurs play a vital role in the economic development

of any country. However, certain factors that affect the performance of women
entrepreneurs vary from culture to culture. The present study is an effort to
examine and highlight those factors that have significant impact on the
performance of women entrepreneurs and their characteristics in SMEs. Data is
collected from 307 women entrepreneurs with response rate of approximately
83% using survey questionnaires. Data analysis is conducted through SPSS21.0
and AMOS 22. Results show that economic, social, and legal and
administrative factors significantly affect the performance of women
entrepreneurs. The present study will help women entrepreneurs to get
knowledge about factors that may affect their performance. This study may
help the government to increase the number of women entrepreneurs and
encourage them to play their role in sustainable growth of economy by
removing their economic, social and legal obstacles.

Keywords: entrepreneurship; women entrepreneur; performance; SMEs;

Pakistan.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Ali, H.Y., Khan, M.K. and
Asrar-ul-Haq, M. (2019) ‘Factors affecting the performance of women
entrepreneurs in SMEs: a case study of Punjab, Pakistan’, J. International
Business and Entrepreneurship Development, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp.67–82.

Copyright © 2019 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

68 H.Y. Ali et al.

Biographical notes: Hafiz Yasir Ali is a Lecturer of Accounting and Finance

in Faculty of Business Administration of COMSATS University Islamabad,
Pakistan. He earned his Master in Commerce from Hailey College of
Commerce, University of the Punjab, Pakistan. His research interests include
corporate social responsibility, women entrepreneurship, earning management
and corporate governance. Apart from teaching accounting, finance and
research methodology courses to undergrad and master classes, he is
supervising research projects and MS theses also.

Muhammad Khalid Khan is an Assistant Professor of Management in Faculty

of Commerce of Hailey college of Commerce, University of the Punjab
Pakistan. He earned his PhD from Pakistan. Throughout his career, he has
worked on multiple teaching and administrative positions in national settings.
His research interests include entrepreneurship, total quality management and
service quality of education.

Muhammad Asrar-ul-Haq is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Business

Administration at COMSATS Institute of Information Technology. Currently,
he is heading the Department of Management Sciences of Sahiwal Campus. His
research interests include CSR in higher education, cultural studies, knowledge
sharing and management, and leadership studies.

1 Introduction

Entrepreneurship is considered as an essential driver of financial development,

employment and advancement; and is broadly acknowledged as a key part of monetary
dynamism. Changing thoughts into monetary opportunities is the key concern of
entrepreneurship. As indicated by Hisrich (2005), entrepreneurship is the procedure in
which people invest their resources in terms of time, expertise and money to add values
in existing product or provide new goods and services to make profit. Entrepreneurship
plays a vital role in financial development of any country (Fairlie, 2004) and is strongly
related to SMEs (Hassan and Almubarak, 2016). SMEs help in the progress of local as
well national economy. Most of the SMEs have been established, managed and owned by
men (Hisrich, 2005). The ratio of women entrepreneurs have been found significantly
less, especially in under developed countries (Singh and Belwal, 2008) and Pakistan has
no exception. Pakistan is the sixth populous country in the world (Asrar-ul-Haq, 2015),
where women are almost half of the population. But, the number of women entrepreneurs
is significantly less according to their population. It may be due to different factors. For
instance, the performance of women entrepreneurs is adversely affected by lack of
opportunities, professional discrimination, social norms, and household responsibilities
(Ahl, 2006; Roomi and Parrott, 2008). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine
certain factors that affect women entrepreneurship and highlight current trends and
opportunities. Further, certain recommendations will be made to address challenges for
women entrepreneurship in Pakistan.
In Pakistan, it is not easy for women to participate in certain types of administrative
exercises. The current social standards do not permit females to have financial
independency (Roomi, 2013). The monetary capability of women entrepreneurs is not
fully acknowledged in many sectors and it is challenging for them to access financial
resources and organisational help. According to Mahmood et al. (2014), financial
 Factors affecting the performance of women entrepreneurs in SMEs 69

institutions do not facilitate females. Moreover, certain females are discouraged by their
male relatives to become entrepreneurs (Roomi, 2013). The proportion of starting a fresh
business is significantly less among females in Pakistan (Nneka, 2015). Women
entrepreneurs represents just 2.4% of the total 3.2 million enterprisers in Pakistan (FBS,
2006). The number of women entrepreneurs is higher than in the past, but still there is
need to focus on this aspect of economic development. There are certain factors that
affect women entrepreneurs in different ways. Samiti (2006) has classified those factors
into two general groups: financial and societal. The financial factors consist of
availability of money, land, professional training, markets, and infrastructure. The
societal factors include gender discrimination, household responsibility and cultural
constraints. According to Gemechis (2007), legal, administrative and technological
factors have significant impact on the performance of women entrepreneurs.

2 Literature review

There are numerous problems and challenges that women have to face to start their own
enterprises (Sara and Peter, 1998). These problems may be internal (lack of professional
training, skill and education) and external (financial constraint, land and family support).
Lack of finance, knowledge about government policies, market information, training,
family support, professional education and skills are the main factors which impact the
performance of female entrepreneurs in Pakistan (Afza et al., 2010). Based on the
available literature, the following four categories have been identified which affect the
performance of women entrepreneurs: economic factors, social factors, legal and
administrative factors, and technical factors.

2.1 Economic factors

Women have limited access to financial capital due to complicated legal formalities and
absence of securities (Akmal, 2014).Even in advanced countries like the USA, women
face problems in getting reasonable access to finance (Al-Ghamri, 2016). Just 4% of the
total budget of small enterprises is available for women in the USA. In several nations,
distinctive researches uncover that most of the time women entrepreneurs bear higher
financing cost, collateral security and shorter credit reimbursement time. These issues
impede women from getting finance. Thus, lack of access to financial resources
negatively affects the performance and progress of women entrepreneurs (Marlow and
Patton, 2005) because capital is considered necessary to initiate and further develop any
enterprise. Lack of access to capital for starting their own enterprises is one of the main
issues faced by women entrepreneurs especially in developing countries. Many other
studies have also reported that women entrepreneurs have lack of capital (Carter, 2011),
less debts and lack of venture capital (Marlow and Patton, 2005). According to Makena
et al. (2014), only 1% of the world's property belongs to women and legal rights of
women decline after marriage in many societies.
In many societies, women have less legacy rights as compared to men. The absence
of property proprietorship also limits women entrepreneurs to secure credits from
institutions (Carter, 2000). Therefore, they have to rely on informal sources such as loan
from friends and relatives most of the times (Still and Walker, 2006). The lack of
70 H.Y. Ali et al.

resources at the start negatively affects the growth and survival of enterprises (Carter and
Marlow, 2006). Due to absence of technical education, professional training and
expertise, women entrepreneurs have limited access to market and are not able to
organise production process (Mazonde and Carmichael, 2016). Women are doing
businesses in traditional areas due to lack of technical and professional training which
negatively affects their development and progress (Wilson and Tagg, 2010). Therefore,
lack of capital, land, professional training and limited access to market may impact the
performance of women entrepreneurs. Therefore, it is hypothesised that:
Hypothesis 1 Economic factors have significant positive effect on the performance of
women entrepreneurs.

2.2 Social factors

Another barrier faced by women at the time of starting enterprise is additional work,
household responsibilities and male predominant society (Sadiq et al., 2014). Women
also have household responsibilities parallel to their professional duties. This dual
liability (business and family) negatively affects their performance (Duberley and
Carrigan, 2013). Social-cultural constraints also have negative impact on performance of
women entrepreneurs and also limit the opportunities for them (Jamali, 2009). Ahl (2006)
reported that due to extra burden of household duties, women entrepreneurs are not able
to compete with men. According to Jamali (2009), women work for the purpose of
increasing family wealth, but additional household responsibilities and work pressure
restrict them from establishing usable connections to enhance their business (Xavier
et al., 2011).
Professional and gender discrimination have negative impact on women’s
performance (Zhu and Chu, 2010; Aldrich et al., 1989). Male relatives regularly
discourage females from becoming a women entrepreneurs (Roomi, 2013). Harassment is
another key problem faced by women entrepreneurs in many societies (Mordi et al.,
2010). In business, interaction with external environment create new opportunities, and
moving away from home becomes necessary for expansion and development of business
(Shane and Venkataraman, 2000). Unfortunately, it is not accepted in most of the nations
which consequently turned into the issue for women and affects their performance
(Tuladdhar, 1996). Gender discrimination has also been observed in networking which
negatively affect the performance of women (Shaw et al., 2005). Based on above
discussion, it is hypothesised that:
Hypothesis 2 Social factors have significant positive effect on the performance of
women entrepreneurs.

2.3 Legal factors

In most of the countries, the absence of support from governments in legal services and
laws is considered as a hurdle for women entrepreneurs (Jamali, 2009). All types of
enterprises have to follow different labour laws (local or national). Getting permits and
licence is required even for small enterprises. Wendy and Siong-Choy (2007) argued that
government aid, business-friendly policies and easy procedure to get business licences
 Factors affecting the performance of women entrepreneurs in SMEs 71

have a significant impact on the performance of women entrepreneurs. Women face

problems at the time of starting their own enterprises while getting a licence from
government. So, getting a licence is a big issue for women entrepreneurs due to the
complicated process, high cost and gender discrimination (Mwobobia, 2012). This is
further validated by Altenburg et al. (2017) and Hisrich and Ramadani (2017) that
procedure for registration of business is not clear and complex. Therefore, it significantly
affects entrepreneurial businesses growth. Based on above discussion, it is hypothesised
that:
Hypothesis 3 Legal and administrative factors have significant positive effect on the
performance of women entrepreneurs.

2.4 Technical factors

Another significant problem for women entrepreneurs is lack of education and technical
training, especially in underdeveloped countries. This along with limited guidance
restricts the expansion and development of women entrepreneurs (Davis and Shaver,
2012). Technical education, professional trainings, and expertise are required for business
growth. Women who are educated, skilled and expert perform well (Mazonde and
Carmichael, 2016), but number of such women is limited. Women have less professional
knowledge and skills as compared to men across globe (Mazonde and Carmichael, 2016)
in general and in developing countries in particular. Lack of knowledge about technology
and ICTs affect the performance of women entrepreneurs (Singh and Belwal, 2008).The
absence of managerial skills, training, professional education and IT knowledge are the
main hurdles in the success of women entrepreneurs. Therefore, it is hypothesised that:
Hypothesis 4 Technical factors have significant positive effect on the performance of
women entrepreneurs.

2.5 Theoretical model

The theoretical framework of the present study is presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Theoretical framework (see online version for colours)

72 H.Y. Ali et al.

3 Methodology

The purpose of current study is to determine the effect of different factors on the
performance of women entrepreneurs. The population of the current study consists of
women entrepreneurs in Punjab, Pakistan. As the total population was unknown, the
sample size is determined by using item to response theory. The purposive
(homogeneous) sampling technique has been used for distributing questionnaires among
women entrepreneurs. In this regard, only those women entrepreneurs are included in this
study that had been associated with businesses for at least six months. The data is
collected from women entrepreneurs using self-administered Likert-based questionnaire
ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). In order to measure performance
of women entrepreneurs, scale is adopted from Ali and Muhammad (2013). For
economic, social, and legal and administrative factors, scale was adopted from Wube
(2010) whereas scale to measure technical factors is adopted from Aslam et al. (2013).
370 questionnaires were distributed among women entrepreneurs of Punjab and
307 questionnaires were received with the response rate of approximately 83%.
Economic, social, technical, legal, and administrative factors are independent while
performance of women entrepreneurs is considered as dependent variable in this study.
Reliability of data has been measured through Cronbach’s D. SPSS-21 has been used
for descriptive, reliability and correlation analysis while for confirmatory factor analysis
(CFAs) and structural model AMOS-22 has been used. Regression analysis has been used
to find out the influence of social, legal, technical and economic factors on the
performance of women entrepreneurs.

4 Data analysis

The purpose of study is to examine the factors that influence the performance of women
entrepreneurs. In this regard, data has been collected from 307 women. Out of which
167 (54.4%) women were married, while 140 (45.6%) were unmarried which shows that
married and unmarried women are equally contributing. 161 (70.6%) respondents were
from the age group of 21–32 years, whereas only 72 (23.5%) women were above 32
years of age. The descriptive data shows that 277 (90%) women entrepreneurs had
minimum 14 years degree, whereas remaining was having 12 years of education. It can
be inferred that educated women are taking much interest in becoming entrepreneurs. If
they are facilitated, it can bring a revolution in economic development of the country.
The results show that majority of women are involved in only four sectors. 115 (37.5%)
participants were from service sectors, 63 (20.5%) were from trade while 52 (16.9%)
were from hand craft and 40 (13.0%) were from production sectors. There is need to
introduce and facilitate women entrepreneurs in other potential sectors also. 134 (43.6%)
entrepreneurs were having less than five employees and just 67 (21.8%) were having
more than 15 employees. The given size of enterprises reflects that most of the
enterprises are recently initiated and those numbers of enterprises are increasing. Further,
it may also be inferred that significant number of enterprises are limited in size due to
lack of necessary support and resources. Analysis shows that mostly women (43.3%)
were solely owner of the enterprise. 102 (33.2%) women had required formal training for
organising enterprise. The majority of women 143 (46.6%) started enterprises from their
personal savings, while just 25 (8.1%) women started enterprises with finance from
 Factors affecting the performance of women entrepreneurs in SMEs 73

different financial institutions. It may be inferred that procedure and requirements of

getting finance for women is not easy task. The detail of demographic information is
given in Table 1.
Table 1 Frequency analysis of demographic characteristics of respondents

Variables Frequency Percentage

Age 17–20 years 18 5.9%
21–24 56 18.2%
25–28 71 23.1%
29–32 90 29.3%
Above 32 72 23.5%
Status Married 167 54.4%
Unmarried 140 45.6%
Education Intermediate 30 10%
Bachelors 123 40%
Master 89 29%
M.Phil 65 21%
Sector Trade 63 20.5%
Production 40 13.0%
Service 115 37.5%
Hand craft 52 16.9%
Others 37 121%
No. of employees Less than 5 134 43.6%
6–10 77 25.1%
11–15 29 9.4%
More than 15 67 21.8%
Ownership Sole proprietorship 133 43.3%
Joint ownership 55 17.9%
Family business 86 28%
Cooperation 24 7.8%
Others 9 2.9%
Training Formal training 102 33.2%
Past experience 87 28.3%
Family 108 35.2%
Others 10 3.3%
Funding Personal saving 143 46.6%
Household income 34 11.1%
Borrowed from friends 25 8.1%
Borrowed from bank 25 8.1%
Others 80 26.1%
74 H.Y. Ali et al.

Mean standard deviation of each variable and results of the correlation among variables is
given in Table 2. Legal factors have lowest mean (3.00), while social factors have the
highest mean value (3.39). The results of reliability test showed that estimated D for
women performance, technical, legal, social and economic factors were 0.814, 0.729,
0.657, 0.721 and 0.746 respectively which were within the acceptable range (George,
2011). Correlation statistics indicate positive and significant relationship between
explained and all explanatory variables. Economic, social, legal and technical factors are
significantly and positively correlated with performance of women entrepreneurs (0.645,
0.576, 0.532, 498 and p-value < 0.05).
Table 2 Mean, standard deviation, reliability and correlation analysis

Variables Mean SD Reliability D WP Tec Leg Soc Eco

Women 3.3183 0.76455 0.814 1
performance
Technical 3.3813 0.87824 0.729 0.498** 1
Legal 3.0006 0.77876 0.657 0.532** 0.542** 1
Social 3.3935 0.82578 0.721 0.576** 0.598** 0.561** 1
Economic 3.1235 0.67469 0.746 0.645** 0.559** 0.555** 0.579** 1
Notes: **= significant at 0.05, WP = women performance, Tec= technical, Leg = legal,
Soc= social, Eco = economic.

4.1 Structural equation modelling

The purpose of present study was to examine the effect of different factors on the
performance of women entrepreneurs. For this purpose, structural equation modelling
(SEM) is applied with two stages. In the first stage, measurement model is fitted, and
structural model to test the posed hypotheses is developed at the second stage (Hair et al.,
2006).

4.2 Measurement model

According to Hair et al. (2010), measurement model is the one “that specifies how the
observed variables depend on the latent, composite and unobserved variables”.
Measurement model (Figure 2) shows the fit model, where regression weights of items of
all variables are more than acceptable value. Factor loading of all items have been
provided in Table 4. Two items (P3, P7) of ‘women performance variable’, one item
(EC10) of ‘economic factors’ and one item of ‘legal factors’ have been deleted due to
small loading. Table 3 indicates the fitness of model.
Table 3 Summary of measurement model
2
x Df p-value CFI AGFI GFI TLI PCLOSE RMSEA CMIN/Df
537.84 323 0.000 0.915 0.860 0.89 0.901 0.785 0.047 1.665
 Factors affecting the performance of women entrepreneurs in SMEs 75

Figure 2 Measurement model (see online version for colours)

76 H.Y. Ali et al.

Table 4 Standardised regression weights

Variables Label Factor Loading P-value

Women performance P1 0.590 ***
P2 0.694 ***
P4 0.503 ***
P5 0.642 ***
P6 0.512 ***
P8 0.511 ***
P9 0.566 ***
Economic_Factors EC11 0.485 ***
EC12 0.573 ***
EC13 0.412 ***
EC14 0.760 ***
EC15 0.415 ***
EC16 0.796 ***
Social_Factors S17 0.329 ***
S18 0.637 ***
S19 0.601 ***
S20 0.564 ***
S21 0.580 ***
S22 0.619 ***
Legal_Factors L23 0.685 ***
L24 0.437 ***
L25 0.542 ***
L26 0.485 ***
Technical_Factors T28 0.470 ***
T29 0.514 ***
T30 0.621 ***
T31 0.617 ***
T32 0.682 ***

4.3 Structural model

At the second stage of SEM, structural model has been developed for testing the
hypotheses of the study. The fitness of the model has been examined through different
fitness matrices, e.g., CFI, GFI, RMSEA, PCLOSE and CMIN/Df. The values of
CMIN/Df 2.148, RMSEA 0.061, CFI 0.938 and GFI 0.886 were within the acceptable
values (Table 5). Structural model (Figure 3) shows the relationship between explanatory
variables (economic, social, legal and administrative, and technical) and explained
variable (performance of women entrepreneurs). Economic, social and legal and
administrative factors have a positive and significant effect on the performance of women
 Factors affecting the performance of women entrepreneurs in SMEs 77

entrepreneurs. The regression weights of each path have been provided in Table 6.
Hypotheses of the study have been tested through structural model given in Figure 3.
Table 5 Summary of structural model
2
x Df p-value CFI AGFI GFI RMSEA CMIN/Df
887.122 413 0.000 0.938 0.850 0.886 0.061 2.148

Table 6 Structural model’s standardised regression weights

Estimates p-value
Economic → Women performance 0.224 0.001**
Social → Women performance 0.377 0.040**
Legal → Women performance 0.279 0.050**
Technical → Women performance 0.024 0.877
Note: **= significant at 0.05.

Figure 3 Structural model (see online version for colours)

78 H.Y. Ali et al.

5 Discussion

The main objective of the study was to study the effect of different factors on the
performance of women entrepreneurs. The majority of women entrepreneurs were
between 21–29 years of age. It shows that young women are significantly moving
towards their own business. In this regard, governments have taken certain initiatives at
provincial and national level to encourage and facilitate women to become entrepreneurs.
Most of the women (65.8%) were not having any formal training. If women are provided
specialised training, it will add to their performance and motivate other women to
become entrepreneurs in different sectors. Only 8.1% of women entrepreneurs started
their business with finance from financial institutions. This significantly low proportion
shows that either financial institutions have very complex legal procedures that women
do not prefer to get finance from financial institutions or the rules and discrimination
factors for female limit them to utilise these options. There is need of proper check and
review of policies to make the procedures convenient for women. Correlational analysis
showed that economic, social, legal& administrative and technical factors have positive
association with the performance of women entrepreneurs. Another significant
characteristic of the majority of women entrepreneurs in Pakistan is that they belong on
three main sectors (service, trade and handcrafts). There is a need to make them aware of
new opportunities and avenues so that they can contribute in every segment to achieve
the target of sustainable development goals.
The results of structural model indicated that economic factors have a positive and
significant effect on the performance of women entrepreneurs (E = 0.224, p < 0.001).
These results are aligned with the previous studies (Naser et al., 2009; Ekpe et al., 2010).
It shows that women entrepreneurs face challenges in raising capital for their enterprise
especially at their initial stage. The findings represent the need that government should
provide capital, land, and market access to women entrepreneurs to improve their
performance. It will add to their motivation and encourage other women also to become
entrepreneurs. Ultimately, it will have positive impact on sustainable development of
SMEs that will lead towards economic growth of the country.
Findings of the study shows that social factors have a positive and significant effect
on the performance of women entrepreneurs (E = 0.337, p < 0.040). These results are in
line with earlier studies (Javadian and Singh, 2012) and (Wube, 2010). These social
challenges restrict the women to play their role in sustainable development goals. Thus,
by providing equal opportunities, removing gender discrimination, and adding family
support will increase the performance of women entrepreneurs. The Government of
Pakistan should also give recognition to women entrepreneurs to motivate and enhance
their performance like the Government of China. Government of China gives ‘Mulan in
Business’ award to motivate and acknowledge the services of women entrepreneurs (Liu,
2013). It will help women entrepreneurs to play significant role in the sustainable growth
of SMEs as well as national economy.
Results show that legal and administrative factors also have a positive and significant
impact on the performance of women entrepreneurs (E = 0.279, p < 0.050). These results
are consistent with previous studies (Javadian and Singh, 2012; Wube, 2010). It
highlights the need that government should make business-friendly policies, easy
procedure for getting a business licence and provide aid to women entrepreneurs to
enrich their role in sustainable economic growth. In addition, the results indicate that
technical factors have an insignificant impact on the performance of women
 Factors affecting the performance of women entrepreneurs in SMEs 79

entrepreneurs (E = 0.024, p = 0.87). This is contrary to earlier studies that showed a

significant impact of technical factors on the performance of women entrepreneurs. It
may be due to lack of training and vocational institutions for women. Majority of women
seem unaware of such training programs. The available facility of special courses and
training is only in big cities that need to be initiated at local levels. There is need to take
urgent initiatives in this regard and offer specialised courses which are required to
enhance the performance of women entrepreneurs. It may also be inferred that women
entrepreneurs give much value to economic, legal and social factors as compared to
technical factors.

6 Conclusions

The purpose of this study was to examine different factors that affect the performance of
women entrepreneurs. For this purpose, data was collected from women entrepreneurs
from Punjab province of Pakistan. The findings show that the majority of women
entrepreneurs in Pakistan have no professional training and skills that affect their
performance. Most of the women also face problems in arranging the initial capital for
enterprises and availing financial services from concerned institutions due to rigorous
procedure and lack of collaterals. Women represent almost half of the total population of
Pakistan. Therefore, it is necessary that government should realise the importance of this
fact and make business-friendly policies, easy access to capital, and easy procedure of
business license for women. In addition, government should establish special trainings
and financial institutions for women at local levels to encourage their participation in the
economic activities of the country.

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