Determinants of business success factors for urban based female entrepreneurs in South Africa.

Abstract

Women entrepreneurs in South Africa have grown out in the open, openly contending with their male counterparts. In contemporary times, female-owned businesses have become one of the quickest developing business groups in South Africa. Notwithstanding all the creativities and supportive environment provided by the South African Government, many contextual factors constraint women entrepreneurs. Furthermore, research has shown that there are significant variances amongst women entrepreneurs who are successful and those that fail as per the location of their business and adopted networks. Conversely, most SMEs in South Africa make use of networks for their business but not much has been researched on the impacts of the networks. Hence, it is imperative to investigate successful business performances among urban-based women entrepreneurs when resource is not the priority network. This paper focuses on the determinants of urban women entrepreneurs’ success when some variables classified under resource network are controlled. Questionnaires were distributed amongst SMEs in Mpumalanga Province to collect data. The trustworthiness test of the study instrument was done, using test re-test reliability method, which yielded an R-value of 0.70 and internal consistency of 0.875 as was measured by the Cronbach Alpha index. We used hierarchical regression, for analysis and moved our predictor variables into our specified equation based on hypothetical proposition. Findings showed varied impacts of the contextual factors on women business success. Technological Resources, Products/Services, Market Strategy, and Customer/market Access are the main positive determinants, whereas Financial Resources, Way of doing business and Information Access has no significant effect on the business success of the entrepreneurs. Statutory bodies supporting entrepreneurship should work collectively with all interested parties to improve the internal and external circumstances for businesspersons predicated on the factors that have shown significance in our Models.