Entrepreneurship activities in rural Tanzania : understanding women's micro businesses

Abstract

In rural Tanzania women play a crucially important role in social and economic production. \nHowever, the constraints of poverty, combined with poor infrastructure and minimal \nresources, limit entrepreneurial possibilities. Nonetheless, poor rural female entrepreneurs \nuse enterprise to try to improve their lives. But this “survivalist” entrepreneurship appears \nradically different from western models of enterprise and we know very little about \nprocesses and practices. \nLiterature suggests that there is a substantial gap of knowledge in terms of how much poor \nrural female entrepreneurs use entrepreneurship activities to cope in their livelihood, and this \nissue is the focus of this study. Like any other social and economic process, entrepreneurship \nis dependent on the social setting of an area, that is, the people and the environment in which \nthey carry out their daily life activities. Thus, entrepreneurship development in Tanzania, \nlike any developing country, reflects the social and cultural differences, hence the difference \nin entry, performance, and survival of enterprises. \nThis study is also guided by the fact that significant differences exist in the general \nentrepreneurial behaviour and performance between men and women, as well as between \nwomen from the same region and from other localities. This study aims at increasing \nunderstanding on whether these differences are brought about by the cultural and social \nattributes, rather than physical and psychological differences. The purpose of this study is to \nexplore on how socio cultural factors have impacted on the way poor rural female \nentrepreneurs undertake their entrepreneurial activities in rural village markets in Tanzania. \nThe study was guided by the social constructionist theory. An ethnographic case study \napproach was used to collect data. Primary data were collected from thirty nine respondents \nfrom three village markets: Kongowe, Ruvu Darajani and Patandi. These markets portray the \ncommercial side of social life and the social side of the commercial life. Observation, \nconversations, interviews and life stories were used to gather the required information. \nSecondary data were collected from various publications and reports from villages to central \ngovernment level. For this study, the researcher looked into four assumptions, namely \nontology, epistemology, assumptions on human nature and methodological implications. In undertaking this study, multiple approaches and data sources were used to triangulate the \nfindings and deepen understanding of social and cultural parameters in three settings. \nThe sustainable rural livelihood framework was used to analyse the impact of the \nentrepreneurial environment, availability and access to livelihood assets and the level of \nvulnerability on poor rural female entrepreneur’s lives. It was revealed that poor rural female \nentrepreneurs undertake entrepreneurial activities in order to survive and not because they \nwant to be entrepreneurs. Enabling environment dictates the type, amount and quality of \nassets possessed by the rural female entrepreneurs. It was also shown that poor women with \nfew assets are more vulnerable to much of the social and economic harassments. It is within \nthis vulnerability context where rural poor female entrepreneurs choose the strategies in \norder to achieve their livelihood outcomes. \nFindings from this study show that some cultural beliefs have negative impact on \nentrepreneurship and consequently economic development of the country. Beliefs in \nwitchcraft and ignorance towards education influence the way rural women start and run \ntheir businesses. Religious and customary laws discriminate poor rural female entrepreneurs \nand hinder their efforts in undertaking entrepreneurial activities. Unfavourable credit \nrepayment conditions and misuse of loans have negative impact on the growth of most \nenterprises. Moreover, business support from government and non governmental agencies is \nlimited. The study shows how the phenomenon of entrepreneurship is context specific and \nhow it differs across cultures. \nThis research has made three contributions: firstly, by bringing new evidence to bear; \nsecondly, using already known information with new interpretation; and thirdly, by tackling \nan existing problem using ethnographic approach.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 6 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.