Assessing the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in Egypt through a Gender Lens
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47941/jepm.1174Keywords:
Entrepreneurship, Women Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship Ecosystem, Gender lensAbstract
Purpose: According to the Egyptian Start-up Ecosystem Report (ITIDA, 2021), Egypt has one of the foremost start-up ecosystems on Africa, both in terms of levels of start-up activity and inward investments. Yet the county lags in terms of women’s participation in founding start-ups. According to the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report for Egypt, the entrepreneurial activity rate for women was 5.7%, while that of Egyptian men was 16.7%, despite women’s positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship.
Methodology: The current research has an exploratory nature and aims at analysing entrepreneurship ecosystem in Egypt through a gender lens to highlight the factors that are hindering Egyptian women from exploiting the different elements of the ecosystem. To achieve this, it adopts the exploratory research approach combining semi-structured interviews with ten women entrepreneurs chosen using expert sampling and an online survey distributed via Egyptian entrepreneurs’ online communities.
Findings: Analysis shows that Egyptian women entrepreneurs do not believe that the ecosystem discriminates against them, but there are some practices that are gender-insensitive which poses challenges to women hence impact their presence and activities within the ecosystem.
Unique contribution to theory, policy and practice: The results add to the literature of both entrepreneurship ecosystem and women entrepreneurship in Egypt and it provides practical implications to leverage Egyptian women participation in entrepreneurship.
Downloads
References
Acs, Z. J., Stam, E., Audretsch, D. B., & O’Connor, A. (2017). The lineages of the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach. Small Business Economics, 49(1), 1-10.
Acs, Z. J., Szerb L., & Autio, E. (2014). Global entrepreneurship index, The GEDI Institute, Amazon, LLC
Adly, A., & Khatib, L. (2014). Reforming the entrepreneurship ecosystem in post-revolutionary Egypt and Tunisia. CDDRL Policy Briefs.
Al-Dajani, H., & Marlow, S. (2013). Empowerment and entrepreneurship: a theoretical framework. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, 19(5), 503–524. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijebr-10-2011-0138
Al-Din, S. G. (2021). Implications of the Fourth industrial revolution on Women in Information and Communications Technology: In-depth analysis on the Future of work. The National Council for Women, The World Bank and Baseera. https://en.enow.gov.eg/Report/133.pdf
Ali, Mohamed Abouelhassan, Moaaz Kabil, Rahaf Alayan, Róbert Magda, and Lóránt Dénes Dávid. "Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Performance in Egypt: An Empirical Study Based on the Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI)." Sustainability 13, no. 13 (2021): 7171. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137171
Audretsch, D. B., & Belitski, M. (2017). Entrepreneurial ecosystems in cities: establishing the framework conditions. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 42(5), 1030–1051. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-016-9473-8
Beninger, S., Ajjan, H., Mostafa, R. B., & Crittenden, V. L. (2016). A road to empowerment: social media use by women entrepreneurs in Egypt. International Journal of Entrepreneurship & Small Business, 27(2/3), 308. https://doi.org/10.1504/ijesb.2016.073987
Bhardwaj, P. (2019). Types of sampling in research. Journal of the Practice of Cardiovascular Sciences, 5(3), 157. https://doi.org/10.4103/jpcs.jpcs_62_19
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Brooks, A. W., Huang, L., Kearney, S. W., & Murray, F. E. (2014). Investors prefer entrepreneurial ventures pitched by attractive men. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(12), 4427-4431.
Brush, C., Edelman, L. F., Manolova, T., & Welter, F. (2019). A gendered look at entrepreneurship ecosystems. Small Business Economics, 53(2), 393–408. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-018-9992-9.
Elam, A. B., Brush, C. G., Greene, P. G., Baumer, B., Dean, M., & Heavlow, R. (2021) Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2018/2019 women’s entrepreneurship report. Babson College, Smith College, and the Global Entrepreneurship Research Association (GERA). https://www.gemconsortium.org/reports/womens-entrepreneurship
El Assar, H., & Said, H. (2015, August). Measuring the Impact of Tourism Education on Empowering Women Entrepreneurship in Egypt. In Proceedings of the 10th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (pp. 175-184).
El-Fiky, S. (2022). Shattering the second glass ceiling: an empirical study on women entrepreneurs in Egypt. International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, (ahead-of-print).
El-Hamidi, F. (2011, September). How do women entrepreneurs perform? Empirical evidence from Egypt. In Economic Research Forum (ERF) Working Paper (No. 621).
Elkafrawi, N., & Refai, D. (2022). Egyptian rural women entrepreneurs: Challenges, ambitions and opportunities. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 23(3), 203–214. https://doi.org/10.1177/14657503221086098
Evans, J.R. and Mathur, A. (2018), "The value of online surveys: a look back and a look ahead", Internet Research, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 854-887. https://doi.org/10.1108/IntR-03-2018-0089.
Hassan, H. E., & Zaharia, R. M. (2021). Women Access to The Labour Market In Egypt: The View Of Private Sector Experts. Transformations in Business & Economics, 20(2).
Hattab, H. (2012). Towards understanding female entrepreneurship in Middle Eastern and North African countries: A cross-country comparison of female entrepreneurship. Education Business and Society Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues, 5(3), 171–186. https://doi.org/10.1108/17537981211265561
Hattab, H. (2008). Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Egypt Entrepreneurship Report.
Hennink, M., & Kaiser, B. N. (2022). Sample sizes for saturation in qualitative research: A systematic review of empirical tests. Social Science & Medicine (1982), 292(114523), 114523. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114523
ITIDA (2021). The Egyptian Startup Ecosystem Report 2021. The Egyptian Government. https://mcit.gov.eg/Upcont/Documents/Reports%20and%20Documents_26102021000_Egyptian-Startup-Ecosystem-Report-2021.pdf
Jochaud, P. (2013). Youth productive employment through entrepreneurship development in the Arab Region: State of the art of interventions in Egypt and Tunisia. United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), 05, 1–113
Khattab, I., & Al-Magli, O. O. (2017). Towards an integrated model of entrepreneurship ecosystem. Journal of Business & Economic Policy, 4(4), 80-92.
Ismail, A., Tolba, A., Schott, T., Meshreki, H., Barakat, S. & Ghalwash, S. (2022). Egypt entrepreneurship Report. Cairo-Egypt. https://www.gemconsortium.org/report/50913
Ismail, A. (2020). A framework for designing business-acceleration programs: A case study from Egypt. Entrepreneurship Research Journal, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.1515/erj-2018-0196
Isenberg, D. J. (2010). How to start an entrepreneurial revolution. Harvard business review, 88(6), 40-50.
Isenberg, D. (2011). The entrepreneurship ecosystem strategy as a new paradigm for economic policy: Principles for cultivating entrepreneurship. Presentation at the Institute of International and European Affairs, 1(781), 1-13.
Kelle, U. (2006). Combining qualitative and quantitative methods in research practice: purposes and advantages. Qualitative research in psychology, 3(4), 293-311.
Krafft, C., & Rizk, R. (2021). The promise and peril of youth entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa. International Journal of Manpower, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). https://doi.org/10.1108/ijm-05-2020-0200
Liguori, E., Bendickson, J., Solomon, S., & McDowell, W. C. (2019). Development of a multi-dimensional measure for assessing entrepreneurial ecosystems. Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, 31(1–2), 7–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/08985626.2018.153714
Lockyer, J., & George, S. (2012). What women want: barriers to female entrepreneurship in the West Midlands. International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, 4(2), 179–195. https://doi.org/10.1108/17566261211234661
Mahrous, A. A., & Cairo University (Egypt). (2019). Female entrepreneurship in Egypt: New theoretical and public policy implication. Marketing and Management of Innovations, 151–160. https://doi.org/10.21272/mmi.2019.1-12
Mastercard. (2021). Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs (MIWE) 2021. https://www.mastercard.com/news/media/phwevxcc/the-mastercard-index-of-women-entrepreneurs.pdf
Markussen, S., & Røed, K. (2017). The gender gap in entrepreneurship–The role of peer effects. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 134, 356-373.
Memon, A. (2020). Analyzing the entrepreneurial ecosystem for women entrepreneurs: A study of rural Jamshoro, Pakistan. Indian Journal of Commerce & Management Studies, XI(3), 45. https://doi.org/10.18843/ijcms/v11i3/05
Ministry of Finance (2007). Women entrepreneur in Egypt, challenges, and opportunities. Cairo-Egypt.
Nowell, L. S., Norris, J. M., White, D. E., & Moules, N. J. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16(1), 160940691773384. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406917733847
Neneh, B. N. (2017). Family support and performance of women-owned enterprises: The mediating effect of family-to-work enrichment. The Journal of Entrepreneurship, 26(2), 196–219. https://doi.org/10.1177/0971355717716762
Palinkas, L.A., Horwitz, S.M., Green, C.A. et al. Purposeful Sampling for Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis in Mixed Method Implementation Research. Adm Policy Ment Health 42, 533–544 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-013-0528-y
Poggesi, S., Mari, M., & De Vita, L. (2016). What’s new in female entrepreneurship research? Answers from the literature. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 12(3), 735–764. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-015-0364-5
Ragab, Y., Ragab, M., & Monaghan, S. (2020). Investigating th Status of Egyptian Entrepreneurship in an era of Revolution and Reforms. In European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (pp. 504–512).
Rashid, S., & Ratten, V. (2020). A systematic literature review on women entrepreneurship in emerging economies while reflecting specifically on SAARC countries. In Contributions to Management Science (pp. 37–88). Springer International Publishing
Rizk, R., & Rashed, A. (2022). Entrepreneurship in Egypt. The Egyptian Labor Market: A Focus on Gender and Economic Vulnerability, 174.
Saadallah, E. M., & Salah, A. (2019). The impact of banking finance on financial performance of Egyptian small businesses in period from 2013 to 2016. OAlib, 06(08), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1105146
Shankar, A., B. Elam, A., & Glinski, A. (2020). Strengthening the women’s entrepreneurship ecosystem within the energy sector. IDS Bulletin (University of Sussex. Institute of Development Studies : 1985), 51(1). https://doi.org/10.19088/1968-2020.104
Shorbagi, S. A., Rizk, A., Kamal, A., & Sultan, P. (2017). Women's entrepreneurship development assessment: Egypt. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_emp/---emp_ent/---ifp_seed/documents/publication/wcms_551168.pdf
Spigel, B. (2017). The relational organization of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 41(1), 49–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/etap.12167
Stam, F. C., & Spigel, B. (2016). Entrepreneurial ecosystems. USE Discussion paper series, 16(13).
Stephens, S., McLaughlin, C., Ryan, L., Catena, M., & Bonner, A. (2022). Entrepreneurial ecosystems: Multiple domains, dimensions and relationships. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 18(e00344), e00344. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbvi.2022.e00344
Sussan, F., & Acs, Z. J. (2017). The digital entrepreneurial ecosystem. Small Business Economics, 49(1), 55–73. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-017-9867-5
Tavakol, M., & Dennick, R. (2011). Making sense of Cronbach’s alpha. International Journal of Medical Education, 2, 53–55. https://doi.org/10.5116/ijme.4dfb.8dfd
Tiwari, N. (2017). Women entrepreneurship in India: A literature review. Amity Journal of Entrepreneurship, 2(1), 47–60.
UNICEF (2021). Addressing Gender Barriers to Entrepreneurship Among Girls and Young Women in South-East Asia. Bangkok: UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub and UNICEF East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office. https://www.unicef.org/eap/reports/addressing-gender-barriers-entrepreneurship-and-leadership-among-girls-and-young-women
Ward, A., Hernández-Sánchez, B. R., & Sánchez-García, J. C. (2019). Entrepreneurial potential and gender effects: The role of personality traits in university students’ entrepreneurial intentions. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2700. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02700
Welsh, D. H. B., Kaciak, E., & Shamah, R. (2018). Determinants of women entrepreneurs’ firm performance in a hostile environment. Journal of Business Research, 88, 481–491. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.12.015
Zaki, H. M., & Zeini, N. T. (2019). Descriptive Analysis of the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in Egypt from a Start-up Perspective: Challenges and Opportunities. https://en.econostrum.info/attachment/1534319/
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
