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Purpose  This study aims to develop and test a framework for studying the failure of new women entrepreneurs in the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) sector.    Design/methodology/approach  Using a sample of 114 unsuccessful entrepreneurs in Kigali, Rwanda, this study aimed to identify key failure factors of women-owned SMEs. This study used mixed methods where quantitative data were analysed using the principal component approach with Varimax rotation to reduce the variables to only three clusters.    Findings  The study findings revealed that the failure of women-owned SMEs results from the entrepreneur’s inability followed by the enterprise incompetence, which are both internally controllable factors and the inauspicious business environment. These findings contribute to the validity of the dynamic capability theory by explaining how well internal and external factors must stay glued together to avoid failure among women-owned SMEs, something that was not yet previously well documented so far.    Originality/value  New SMEs are considered a noteworthy constituent of Rwandan development. Unfortunately, most new SMEs, in general, do not grow; their failure rate is high (70%), which raised many worries for both researchers and policymakers as to why this occurs at this stage of business growth. Therefore, to the best of the authors’ knowledge this paper is the first to analyse the reasons for the failure of Rwandan women-owned SMEs in the service sector. These findings are important because they suggest that policies designed to reduce the incidence of SMEs’ failure should take account of the two main factors influencing failure among women entrepreneurs.

Key failure factors of start-up women owned SMEs in service sector in Kigali: a principal component analysis approach