Is Women Entrepreneurship a Key Driver for Business Performance of the SMEs in Asian Developing Nations? A Case Study of SMEs in the Agricultural Sector in Sri Lanka

The contribution of women’s entrepreneurial activities to global economic development is vastly increasing, and the relationship between their entrepreneurial attributes and business performance is broadly questioned empirically. Therefore, a profound investigation of this phenomenon is essential as those activities’ social and economic outcomes are more critical in achieving economic development, specifically in developing countries. We examine in this study the association of entrepreneurial attributes of women entrepreneurs with the performance of SMEs interpretively by considering the small and medium enterprises in the agricultural sector in Sri Lanka as a case. To realize this purpose, we use a dataset from a survey conducted with 725 agro-based entrepreneurs in Sri Lanka. We applied the chi-square test and cross-tabulation to study the research phenomena and explored the association between women’s entrepreneurship and SME performance under four entrepreneurial attributes. The study confirms the high performance of women entrepreneurs with business-related training and experience by considering human capital attributes. Financial management attributes confirmed the association of women entrepreneurs’ credit market accessibility and better business record-keeping behavior with higher performance. Social capital attributes revealed the high performance of women entrepreneurs with household responsibilities, internal social capital, and external social capital. The innovation capacity attribute confirmed the association of women entrepreneurs’ product innovation and market innovation in business processes with higher business performance. The results emphasize the importance of government and policymakers’ intervention in forming a secured, favorable, and sustained business environment for women entrepreneurs.