Are there gender differences in sustainable entrepreneurship indicators amongst SMEs in South Africa? Application of MANOVA.

Abstract

In addition to the contributions and relevance of entrepreneurship activities to economic growth and development of countries, various factors have equally been advanced as responsible for the success stories of entrepreneurship sustainability worldwide. However, the influence of success factors on gender ownership of entrepreneurship activities is a relatively new aspect in the field of research that has not gained much academic attention in the literature especially in South Africa. This debate is so important in the face of the various agitations for equal participation of women and the inconclusive debate that women are better managers of business enterprises. In this article, using the Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) technique, we examined the extent to which sustainable entrepreneurship indicators (finance, social and environmental) account for any disparity in gender ownership and management of business enterprises in South Africa. A stratified sampling method was adopted for the survey. Our analytical technique (MANOVA) created a new summary dependent variable, which is a linear combination of each of our original dependent variables. Confidence intervals of 95% and margins of error (3%) were used to validate the results. Findings indicate that the only difference that exists as per gender ownership disparity is around financial resources. There is therefore a need to realign programmes and policies to reduce this gendered inequality.