IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v30y2022i5p1235-1251.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Empowering Shepreneurs to achieve the sustainable development goals: Exploring the impact of interest‐free start‐up credit, skill development and ICTs use on entrepreneurial drive

Author

Listed:
  • Saman Mazhar
  • Ali Sher
  • Azhar Abbas
  • Abdul Ghafoor
  • Guanghua Lin

Abstract

Recent debates—like agenda 2030—emphasize that women are not just the potential beneficiaries of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), yet they are also active change agents in achieving them. This study used non‐parametric techniques to investigate and compare the impact of three entrepreneur‐supporting interventions—interest‐free start‐up credit, skill‐development short courses, and information and communication technologies (ICTs) use—in lowering the impediments defying women entrepreneurs in Punjab‐Pakistan. We identified 33 barriers and three groups of respondents based on intervention(s) availed. Mean score ranking analysis reveals 25 out of 33 barriers as critical in affecting women entrepreneurs in category one, whereas women entrepreneurs in category two and three are found to face 20 and 14 critical barriers, respectively. Furthermore, we used factor analysis to group these 25 critical barriers into five principal groups: (1) business management & marketing barriers, (2) gender & social barriers, (3) client and customer‐related barriers, (4) public policy and governance barriers, and (5) innovation & knowledge‐management barriers. Moreover, the study advances a comprehensive understanding of underlying grouped barriers to devise coherent plans and collaborative actions—involving local institutions, stakeholders, academia, and industry—for containing these snags and to better harvest the impacts of development initiatives. The study extends the existing literature on techno‐economic disclosure, digital transformation and entrepreneurship, and sustainable knowledge management.

Suggested Citation

  • Saman Mazhar & Ali Sher & Azhar Abbas & Abdul Ghafoor & Guanghua Lin, 2022. "Empowering Shepreneurs to achieve the sustainable development goals: Exploring the impact of interest‐free start‐up credit, skill development and ICTs use on entrepreneurial drive," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1235-1251, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:30:y:2022:i:5:p:1235-1251
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.2313
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2313
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sd.2313?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Esther Duflo, 2012. "Women Empowerment and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1051-1079, December.
    2. Alessandro Tarozzi & Jaikishan Desai & Kristin Johnson, 2015. "The Impacts of Microcredit: Evidence from Ethiopia," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 54-89, January.
    3. Barasinska Nataliya & Schäfer Dorothea, 2014. "Is Crowdfunding Different? Evidence on the Relation between Gender and Funding Success from a German Peer-to-Peer Lending Platform," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 15(4), pages 436-452, December.
    4. Gary Akehurst & Enrique Simarro & Alicia Mas‐Tur, 2012. "Women entrepreneurship in small service firms: motivations, barriers and performance," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(15), pages 2489-2505, January.
    5. Robert Fairlie & Alicia Robb, 2009. "Gender differences in business performance: evidence from the Characteristics of Business Owners survey," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 375-395, December.
    6. Bruno Crépon & Florencia Devoto & Esther Duflo & William Parienté, 2015. "Estimating the Impact of Microcredit on Those Who Take It Up: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Morocco," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 123-150, January.
    7. Zhifu Mi & D’Maris Coffman, 2019. "The sharing economy promotes sustainable societies," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-3, December.
    8. Evropi‐Sofia Dalampira & Stefanos A. Nastis, 2020. "Mapping Sustainable Development Goals: A network analysis framework," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 46-55, January.
    9. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo, 2014. "Do Firms Want to Borrow More? Testing Credit Constraints Using a Directed Lending Program," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(2), pages 572-607.
    10. David L. Olson & Desheng Dash Wu, 2015. "Enterprise Risk Management," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: ENTERPRISE RISK MANAGEMENT, chapter 1, pages 3-12, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    11. Barbara J. Orser & Allan Riding, 2018. "The influence of gender on the adoption of technology among SMEs," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 33(4), pages 514-531.
    12. Heike Baumüller, 2018. "The Little We Know: An Exploratory Literature Review on the Utility of Mobile Phone†Enabled Services for Smallholder Farmers," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 134-154, January.
    13. Tim Short, 2008. "Sustainable development in Rwanda: industry and government," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 56-69.
    14. Suleman Sarwar & Dalia Streimikiene & Rida Waheed & Zouheir Mighri, 2021. "Revisiting the empirical relationship among the main targets of sustainable development: Growth, education, health and carbon emissions," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 419-440, March.
    15. Sutter, Christopher & Bruton, Garry D. & Chen, Juanyi, 2019. "Entrepreneurship as a solution to extreme poverty: A review and future research directions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 197-214.
    16. Lan Xue & Lingfei Weng & Hanzhi Yu, 2018. "Addressing policy challenges in implementing Sustainable Development Goals through an adaptive governance approach: A view from transitional China," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(2), pages 150-158, March.
    17. Veland Ramadani & Shqipe Gërguri & Léo-Paul Dana & Tatjana Tašaminova, 2013. "Women entrepreneurs in the Republic of Macedonia: waiting for directions," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 19(1), pages 95-121.
    18. Maryann Bylander, 2015. "Credit as Coping: Rethinking Microcredit in the Cambodian Context," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(4), pages 533-553, December.
    19. Abhijit Banerjee & Dean Karlan & Jonathan Zinman, 2015. "Six Randomized Evaluations of Microcredit: Introduction and Further Steps," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 1-21, January.
    20. Sanjeev Prashar & T. Sai Vijay & Chandan Parsad, 2018. "Women entrepreneurship in India: a review of barriers and motivational factors," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 22(3), pages 206-219.
    21. Shing-Yi Wang, 2012. "Credit Constraints, Job Mobility, and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from a Property Reform in China," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(2), pages 532-551, May.
    22. Welsh, Dianne H.B. & Kaciak, Eugene & Shamah, Rania, 2018. "Determinants of women entrepreneurs' firm performance in a hostile environment," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 481-491.
    23. David L Olson & Desheng Dash Wu, 2015. "Enterprise Risk Management," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 9378, February.
    24. Baron, Robert A., 2004. "The cognitive perspective: a valuable tool for answering entrepreneurship's basic "why" questions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 221-239, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ahlin, Christian & Gulesci, Selim & Madestam, Andreas & Stryjan, Miri, 2020. "Loan contract structure and adverse selection: Survey evidence from Uganda," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 180-195.
    2. Lori Beaman & Dean Karlan & Bram Thuysbaert & Christopher Udry, 2023. "Selection Into Credit Markets: Evidence From Agriculture in Mali," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(5), pages 1595-1627, September.
    3. Huis, Marloes & Lensink, Robert & Vu, Nhung & Hansen, Nina, 2019. "Impacts of the Gender and Entrepreneurship Together Ahead (GET Ahead) training on empowerment of female microfinance borrowers in Northern Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 46-61.
    4. Jongwoo Chung & Booyuel Kim, 2024. "Impact of microfinance on income generation: Evidence from a rural community‐driven development programme in Myanmar," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(3), pages 1866-1879, April.
    5. Manthos D. Delis & Fulvia Fringuellotti & Steven Ongena, 2020. "Credit, Income, and Income Inequality," Staff Reports 929, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    6. Emily Breza & Cynthia Kinnan, 2021. "Measuring the Equilibrium Impacts of Credit: Evidence from the Indian Microfinance Crisis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(3), pages 1447-1497.
    7. N'dri, Lasme Mathieu & Kakinaka, Makoto, 2020. "Financial inclusion, mobile money, and individual welfare: The case of Burkina Faso," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    8. Pedro Carneiro & Sokbae Lee & Daniel Wilhelm, 2020. "Optimal data collection for randomized control trials," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 23(1), pages 1-31.
    9. Jonathan Fu & Annette Krauss, 2024. "Preparing fertile ground: how does the quality of business environments affect MSE growth?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 51-103, June.
    10. Ragui Assaad & Caroline Krafft & Shaimaa Yassin, 2020. "Job creation or labor absorption? An analysis of private sector job growth in Egypt," Middle East Development Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 177-207, July.
    11. Gyorgy Molnar & Attila Havas, 2019. "Escaping from the poverty trap with social innovation: a social microcredit programme in Hungary," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1912, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    12. Czura, Kristina, 2015. "Do flexible repayment schedules improve the impact of microcredit?," Discussion Papers in Economics 26608, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    13. Karlan, Dean & Osman, Adam & Zinman, Jonathan, 2016. "Follow the money not the cash: Comparing methods for identifying consumption and investment responses to a liquidity shock," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 11-23.
    14. Paolo Casini & Lore Vandewalle & Zaki Wahhaj, 2017. "Public Good Provision in Indian Rural Areas: The Returns to Collective Action by Microfinance Groups," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 31(1), pages 97-128.
    15. Dao, Nguyen Dinh, 2020. "Does the microcredit intervention change the life of the low- and middle-income households in rural Vietnam? Evidence from panel data," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 20(C).
    16. Nakano, Yuko & Magezi, Eustadius F., 2020. "The impact of microcredit on agricultural technology adoption and productivity: Evidence from randomized control trial in Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    17. João Paulo Coelho Ribeiro & Fábio Duarte & Ana Paula Matias Gama, 2022. "Does microfinance foster the development of its clients? A bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-35, December.
    18. Lota Tamini & Ibrahima Bocoum & Ghislain Auger & Kotchikpa Gabriel Lawin & Arahama Traoré, 2019. "Enhanced Microfinance Services and Agricultural Best Management Practices: What Benefits for Smallholders Farmers? An Evidence from Burkina Faso," CIRANO Working Papers 2019s-11, CIRANO.
    19. Nene Oumou & Jonathan Goyette, 2016. "Can microcredit impact the activity of small and medium enterprises? New evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design in Panama," Cahiers de recherche 16-05, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    20. Eduard Marinov, 2019. "The 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 78-116.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:30:y:2022:i:5:p:1235-1251. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.