Negotiating business and family demands within a patriarchal society–the case of women entrepreneurs in the Nepalese context

TY - JOUR

T1 - Negotiating business and family demands within a patriarchal society–the case of women entrepreneurs in the Nepalese context

AU - Xheneti, Mirela

AU - Karki, Shova Thapa

AU - Madden, Adrian

N1 - Funding Information: The empirical data collection was supported by the Centre for Economic Policy Research and the Department for International Development, UK within their Private Sector Development Scheme, Exploratory Research Grant No 2533. We thank the Centre for Economic Policy Research and the Department for International Development, UK for supporing the empirical data collection through their Private Sector Development Scheme, Exploratory Research Grant No 2533. We also thank the three Research Assistants who supported the data collection process in Nepal and the three anonymous referees for their useful feedback. Publisher Copyright: © 2018, © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

PY - 2019/3/15

Y1 - 2019/3/15

N2 - The aim of this paper is to advance our understanding of how women negotiate their business and family demands in a developing country context. The highest cited motivation for women’s pursuit of entrepreneurship has been their need to attend to these demands. Yet, empirically we know little about the negotiating actions taken by, and the business satisfaction of women in the context of both livelihood challenges and patriarchal contexts, despite several scholarly calls for contextualized accounts of women’s entrepreneurship. We explore these issues by employing a qualitative study of 90 women engaged in primarily informal entrepreneurial activities in three Nepalese regions. Our findings highlight three main and interrelated themes–negotiating consent, family resource access and gaining status. These themes allow us to contextualize the process of negotiating business and family demands by highlighting how women legitimize their business activities, respond to family/societal expectations and mobilize support for, and find satisfaction in their business. Overall, our study contributes towards accounts of business–family interface that incorporate the everyday practices of entrepreneurial activities amongst those less privileged in terms of resource access in particular sociocultural contexts.

AB - The aim of this paper is to advance our understanding of how women negotiate their business and family demands in a developing country context. The highest cited motivation for women’s pursuit of entrepreneurship has been their need to attend to these demands. Yet, empirically we know little about the negotiating actions taken by, and the business satisfaction of women in the context of both livelihood challenges and patriarchal contexts, despite several scholarly calls for contextualized accounts of women’s entrepreneurship. We explore these issues by employing a qualitative study of 90 women engaged in primarily informal entrepreneurial activities in three Nepalese regions. Our findings highlight three main and interrelated themes–negotiating consent, family resource access and gaining status. These themes allow us to contextualize the process of negotiating business and family demands by highlighting how women legitimize their business activities, respond to family/societal expectations and mobilize support for, and find satisfaction in their business. Overall, our study contributes towards accounts of business–family interface that incorporate the everyday practices of entrepreneurial activities amongst those less privileged in terms of resource access in particular sociocultural contexts.

KW - business–family interface

KW - developing context

KW - gender

KW - Informal entrepreneurship

KW - Nepal

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85048898736&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/08985626.2018.1551792

DO - 10.1080/08985626.2018.1551792

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85048898736

SN - 0898-5626

VL - 31

SP - 259

EP - 278

JO - Entrepreneurship and Regional Development

JF - Entrepreneurship and Regional Development

IS - 3-4

ER -