Palestinian women entrepreneurs : an exploratory study of intentions relatedness to business sustainability

Abstract

The main objectives of this study are to identify and explore the intentions for women entrepreneurs in Palestine to start and run their own businesses, the characteristics of women entrepreneurs, the key success factors to women entrepreneurs, business sustainability, the relatedness of intentions to business sustainability, and the main barriers facing women entrepreneurs and how they overcome these barriers. The primary data are collected using semi-structured interviews with a selective sample of 21 women entrepreneurs in Palestine. Content analysis is adopted to analyze the collected data. The results showed that there are multiple intentions that encourage women to start and run their own businesses in Palestine. However, these intentions vary in terms of their importance. The top five intentions are the psychological motivation, the need to generate income and job security, independence, freedom, and being own boss, contributing something to society, and the desire to work. In addition, the results showed that the most two important characteristics of women entrepreneurs are ambition and determination. Other important characteristics include willingness to advance, optimism, willingness to work, willingness to learn, patience, and creativity. Moreover, the results showed that the top six critical success factors of women entrepreneurs in Palestine are hard work, business skills, support from family and friends, education, experience, and training, marketing factor, and good product at competitive price. The results also revealed that making profit is rated as the most common indicator of women business sustainability followed by enlarging the customer base and then being famous in the field of business. Regarding the relatedness of intentions to start businesses to business sustainability, the results indicated that intentions to start their businesses are directly associated with the sustainability of their businesses. This is due to the fact that these intentions are the driving force to start their businesses. As long as they exist, they will do their best to enhance critical success factors which in turn lead to sustainability of their businesses. Finally, the study revealed that the most critical barriers facing women entrepreneurs in Palestine are lack of government support, marketing, competition, and raw material. The study recommends, among other things, incorporating women's entrepreneurial dimension in the formation of all SME - related policies, increasing the participation of Palestinian women in the labor force, improving the position of Palestinian women in society to promote women’s entrepreneurship, promoting women businesses by creating favorable environment and policies.