Suchergebnisse

Purpose
The role of women in Pakistani society – largely embedded in its patriarchal socio–cultural environment – has important implications for women's entrepreneurial activity in the country. This study aims to investigate and analyse the influence of informal institutional factors on women's entry into entrepreneurship in Pakistan, and determine how women exercise agency to cope with the constraints posed by such factors.


Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach is used to explore the normative context and lived experiences of women entrepreneurs in relation to the influence of socio–cultural beliefs and attitudes on their entrepreneurial career choices.


Findings
The findings suggest that women's entrepreneurial career choices both revolve around and are shaped by a complex interplay of socio–cultural influences. Pakistani women entrepreneurs exercise their agency as a means of negotiating gender roles within both household and society, using religious descriptions as a means to justify their entrepreneurial activity.


Research limitations/implications
While every effort has been made to ensure that the data were objectively interpreted, and the derived findings were robustly analysed, the research team acknowledges the many difficulties associated with adopting a social constructionist approach. As articulated by Fletcher (2011), the key issues of contextual objectivity (i.e. where the researcher judges what is important), reflexive turn (the need for the researcher to constantly reconnect with the subject) and potential multiplicity of contexts (the various contextual and potentially conflicting influences on the researcher) presents ongoing challenges for researchers in this field.


Originality/value
This study offers valuable insights into the impact of the informal (socio–cultural) institutional factors on women's entrepreneurial activity, opening up new avenues for further research. The study also contributes to the women's entrepreneurship literature from the perspective of an Islamic developing country.

The governance system of any country is required to be stable in any country. This study is the initial attempt to find the determinants of governance in Pakistan. The data has been collected from World Bank Data Bank from 2002-2016. The correlation test and Structural Equation Modeling is applied to the data. The governance is the construct variable in Structural Equation Modeling. The results shows that Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Violence Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Gross Domestic Product per Capital Growth, Gross National Index growth. Gender diversity and Human Development are the factors of governance in Pakistan. It can be argued that Regulatory quality, Rule of Law and the control of corruptions are not the confirmed factors of governance the latent variable in Pakistan. I can say that Regulatory Quality is not important for the governance. The regulatory quality is not important factor for governance in Pakistan but Voice and accountability, Political stability and the government effectiveness are the confirmed factors for the governance. The governance in Pakistan is poor but other determinants are of economic growth and developments are improving so this shows that if Policy makers want to improve the governance determinants then it will have positive effect on the economic development.

Journal Article ; The purpose of this paper is to analyse the issues and challenges faced by potential women entrepreneurs in Pakistan. This study focuses on their motivating factors to start their own businesses and highlights their preferences for different aspects of training and development programs. Survey through questionnaire of 400 potential women entrepreneurs was conducted to analyse issues and challenges faced by and understand their preference related to different aspects of training program. The potential entrepreneurs selected for survey were part of one training program funded by Government of Sindh and this program was implemented by Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA). The data is analyzed by using the midpoint approach. The research confirms that in Pakistan the majority of potential women entrepreneurs have preferences for women-only training program. It also identifies that only in big cities they prefer combined training program. This paper also identifies that majority of the potential women entrepreneurs prefer English language as medium of instruction during the training programs. The main motivating factor in starting their own business was their intention to support the family. This research will be helpful for public sector agencies in Pakistan which are working support potential entrepreneurs. It will be helpful in formulating effective entrepreneurship training and other support programs. It would also support the policy makers to look holistically the women entrepreneurship. This paper will provide guidelines for potential women entrepreneurs in Pakistan against challenges which they may face. Key words: potential women entrepreneurs, Pakistan, issues and challenges.