Introduction
Small businesses and entrepreneurship contribute to economic growth, a creation of additional jobs, fair competition, a decrease of monopoly. Historically, the male population was in the majority of those who managed businesses. Nowadays, more and more women create their own entrepreneurship yet some of the business located in developing countries seem to leg behind. The survey suggested several hypotheses according to which women do not intent to take the risk and expand a business, turning it into more lucrative.
The research study on “The performance of female entrepreneurs: Credit, training and the moderating effect of attitude towards risk-taking” suggests that there is a strong relationship between entrepreneurship performance and women’ financial literacy and ability to manage a business and take risks. The objective of the research is to examine how credit and training skills influence risk-taking, because according to entrepreneurship theory of Shane, the success of business does not correlate with credit and skills but rather with attitude towards risk, because “a risk-averse individual is less likely to explain entrepreneurial opportunity) (Shane, 2003). A person might be a savvy expert, but his fear of taking risk will become an impediment to starting a business.
It is important to note that women of developed countries are more likely to operate their business not only because they have a better education background and more favorable economic environment but also because they are able to resort to external fundings and credit, while in developing countries women dispose of only their personal savings. For instance, in Canada women are more likely to get loans from financial institutions to support their business. Moreover, access to training and the ability of self-development plays a significant role in the decision-taking process. The study of the correlation between women’s business performance and training along with loan access and business expansion covers data from Nigeria and states the methodology of quantitative research. It is based on 161 questionaries out of 280 (the rest was not usable for data evaluation). The study employs three methods of analysis: descriptive statistic, correlation analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis to study the results. The research makes three hypothesis: First: Credit is positively related to women entrepreneurs’ performance. Second: Training is positively related to women entrepreneurs’ performance. Third: Attitude towards risk-taking moderates the effect of credit and training on women entrepreneurs’ performance (Ekpe, 2011).
The research does not indicate the computer program used but it describes how the statistics were calculated and shows the results in 3 tables with a description of analysis, explanation of calculations and conclusions. For instance, in correlation analysis, the values of the coefficient signify the strength of the connection between the variables. The relationship varies from small (0.1-0.29) to medium (0.3-0.49) and large (0.5-1.0) (Cohen, 1988). The analysis reveals that training is more significant than loan access because its coefficient equals 0.685 while loan access is not significant (lower than 0.1 for all values, including skill acquisition, ability to expand a business, self-confidence in business and sales performance).
In the descriptive analysis, the study uses Cronbach’s alpha that is higher than 0.5. It takes 0.84 (for loan access); 0.92 (for skill acquisition) 0.705 (for self- confidence); 0.86 (for sales). This analysis has little different results than the previous correlation analysis because training has a higher mean value and it only proves that skill acquisition has more influence on women’s business performance than loan advantage.
Finally, the hierarchical regression table shows slightly different results than two previous tables. It results that loan access has no vital significance with women entrepreneur performance that is true for all results listed above. The study reports the value p and makes it possible for a reader to make a conclusion. It reveals that ability to expand business interacts with skill acquisition but not with loan access. The survey indicates the correlation between the ability to expand business and skills acquisition for women entrepreneurship: the higher opportunity to expand the business, the most important skill acquisition are and the impact of this acquisition on sales is also high. From all hypothesis given, hypothesis 2 proved to be the most supported: training is positively related to women entrepreneurs’ performance.
Conclusion
The research study suggested that there is a strong relationship between entrepreneurship performance and women’ training skills, loan access and willingness to take risks. The researchers made three hypothesis in which they ponder over what is positively related to women entrepreneurs’ performance: credit access, training or attitude towards risk-taking. The study was conducted in Nigeria based on 161 questionaries. The research methodology includes descriptive statistic, correlation analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis. From all of the analysis, the second hypothesis proved to be supported which make the researches come to a conclusion that training is the most important skill that positively related to women entrepreneurs’ performance.
References
Ekpe I., Razak R.C., Mat N. (2011). The performance of female entrepreneurs: Credit, training and the moderating effect of attitude towards risk-taking. University of Malaysia
Shane, S. (2003). A general theory of entrepreneurship: The individual-opportunity nexus. UK: Edward Elgar.
Cohen J. (1998). Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. Routledge; 2 edition
