Women entrepreneurs across the world are faced with the challenge of accessing sufficient capital for business startups and maintaining businesses. This is a significant drawback for economic development in the 21st century. Within the UAE context, women are empowered by new internal policies that aim to make women achieve financial independence as much as that of men both at the workplace and in entrepreneurship. About 54% of all graduates within the UAE are females. An increasing number of female college graduates are furthering their careers and developing their own or family business establishments. In every ten business startups, only three are started by women. The low number of female entrepreneurs is caused by the culture that requires women to seek permission from husbands to establish and run businesses. It is also caused by a lack of sufficient government support and weak links among potential women entrepreneurs.
The proposed project will identify and analyze the difficulties encountered by women about entrepreneurship within the UAE. The review period will be from 10 years back to now. This period is chosen because cultural factors started to negatively impact women in business about ten years ago. A retrospective study will help assess the problems and determine whether they are still hindering women from succeeding in business. Through a thorough analysis of the issues faced by female entrepreneurship, important recommendations would be made so that the government can put in place relevant structures to help women start successful businesses in the future.
Education and empowerment have been cited as key to promoting the economic growth of women. For example, women entrepreneurs could collaborate with educational and research institutions to develop innovative and pragmatic ideas essential in starting and operating businesses characterized by excellent performances. Educating women aspiring to be entrepreneurs on channels they would use to acquire government funds to start businesses would increase the number of women engaging in innovative and successful business activities within the UAE.
The project will review the literature on women entrepreneurship and business matters within and outside the UAE. Specifically, women’s entrepreneurial activities and environments in Sweden, the US, and Finland will be analyzed and compared to the UAE’s situation. The literature review will be used to identify the main characteristics of women entrepreneurship in the UAE and consumer behavior about female business people. Also, the impact of government policies and regulations will be analyzed to determine their role in supporting women’s innovative ideas.
The methodology of the project will be based on questions to be answered by women entrepreneurs within the UAE. Although a total of 200 items will be sent to respondents, it is expected that only about 100 questions would yield useful responses. A survey of 30 questions will be used in the study. However, the results to be obtained from the first phase of the survey will impact the sampling campaign for candidates in the next step. Qualitative assessments will be accepted from respondents by utilizing personal interviews. In-depth interviews will be the final methodological approach in the study. The talks will help obtain more specific and emotional responses to interview questions. Through the guidance of the supervisor, the project will be conducted from January 2014 to May 2014. The thesis defense will place in June 2014.