Women Entrepreneurship in Chennai, India – Factors Trigger and Prevent

The last four decades of the 20th century have seen faster growth in women entrepreneurship underpinning the profound success of the globalized Indian economy. Women entrepreneurs encounter numerous challenges in various areas of production, marketing, finance, and other business operations. The objective of this research study is to analyze the various factors affecting the women entrepreneurship development in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) of the industrial estates of Chennai. The study is focused on 107 women entrepreneurs of the SMEs, who were selected on the basis of random sampling and were contacted through a well-defined questionnaire. The primary data collected was compiled and thoroughly analyzed to arrive at conclusions. A critical analysis was carried out using the null hypothesis, Chi-square tests, and ranking tests. The study reveals that factors such as education, previous experience and employment, and religion play a crucial role in motivating most of today’s women-run SMEs. Further, this paper critically analyzes the discouraging factors impeding the women entrepreneurial development in SMEs across the industrial estates of Chennai, the State Capital of Tamil Nadu (India). Our empirical results reveal that the financial impediments discourage the behavior of the women entrepreneurs to the highest degree and preventing their operations causing enormous anguish as governmental financial programs (good on paper) are seldom executed on the ground. Hence, Government thought to help the women entrepreneurs through financial assistance especially during the moratorium period of the units, facilitating the acceleration process. Government assistance and adequate financial support as detailed in the Effective Forces Model could only repulse the frictional forces acting against the women entrepreneurs and lead them toward successful entrepreneurship. This research study gives further scope to the researchers to get to the bottom of the iceberg to find out the other factors which could promote women entrepreneurship.