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Among the various global options for self-employment, venturing into the micro-enterprise sector has been recognized as an important way for employment generation and poverty alleviation in many developing/emerging economies. In this context, women-owned businesses at the grassroots play a vital role in developing countries like India far beyond contributing to job creation and economic growth. The informal sector is a sizeable and expanding feature of the contemporary global economy.

However, the informal economy operates at the cusp of the institutional framework, which makes them susceptible to many risks like lack of formal financing options, legal aid or increasing margin through access to formal markets. Non-Profit Development Agencies (NPDAs) have emerged as a viable and essential middle ground support in promoting women entrepreneurship in their capacity to contribute beyond governmental institutions.

The study adopted an inductive qualitative option through a case study design to explore the approaches adopted by NPDAs in promoting micro-entrepreneurship among women at the base of the pyramid (BoP) in the urban informal sector in India. The findings suggest that the NPDAs created an impact through the services, which translated into monetary earnings for the entrepreneurs. They could make financial contributions to their families, which boosted their self-confidence and overall personality. The findings also indicate positive changes like increased self-confidence, self-dependence, and inner strength as reported by the entrepreneurs.

The paper identifies the influence of socio-economic factors and livelihood training in stimulating micro-entrepreneurship among women self-help group (SHG) members.

The study is based on a sample of 416 women SHG members drawn from all the four districts of Sikkim using cluster sampling procedure. A multivariate binary logistic model is used to find the impact of socio-economic factors, and a Poisson regression has been used to find the impact of training on fostering micro-entrepreneurship. The result is validated using a propensity score matching approach which corrects for the potential self-selection bias in the sample. Subsequently, a covariate adjustment estimator verifies the robustness of the approach.

The study finds that “size of landownership”, “amount of loan borrowed”, “member's age”, “number of earning and dependent members”, “number of years of SHG enrolment” as well as the “district to which the member belongs to” have a statistically significant influence on the graduation of SHG members to micro-entrepreneurs. Furthermore, it is found that members attending the livelihood training programmes had a significantly higher number of microenterprises.

The study differentiates itself by providing empirical evidence on how socio-economic factors and livelihood training stimulate micro-entrepreneurship among SHG women of Sikkim, which has so far remained unexplored. Moreover, advanced econometric method has been used to eliminate the possible self-selection bias involved with training participation and thereby provides reliable and robust results.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2023-0070

Micro-businesses contribute to economic development by improving individual welfare. Women are the primary drivers and owners of such businesses in urban Ethiopia. The purpose of this study is to investigate the poverty status and determinants among women-owned micro-businesses.

The basic study units were women who owned micro-businesses. A sample of 384 women-owned micro-business was chosen using a stratified and systematic random sampling technique. Thirty-six participants were purposely chosen for in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Questionnaires, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect data. The poverty head count, poverty gap and poverty severity indices were computed to estimate poverty status. The major determinants of women’s poverty were investigated using a logistic regression model.

The overall poverty incidence, gap and severity were estimated to be 24.27%, 3.85%, and 1.11% respectively, among the women who owned micro-businesses. Eight of the 14 poverty determinants, including age, dependents, savings, remittance and the number of days and hours women work in their businesses, were found to have a significant effect on women’s poverty. The results suggest that local governments, technical and vocational training institutions should work together to reduce the impact of poverty-aggravating factors on women and increase the contribution of women-owned micro-businesses to poverty reduction.

This study addressed the poverty status of women who run micro-businesses, which is a crucial issue in Ethiopia’s urban context. It adds new knowledge to the issue of gendered economic participation, poverty reduction and poverty determinants in the Ethiopian context.

This study aims to find whether the micro-enterprises lead to women empowerment and entrepreneurship and make them to be wholly involved in income-generating activities by having them choose a business venture of their own.

Women empowerment is very important for the acceleration of economic growth. The economic empowerment of women is being regarded these days as a sine qua non of progress for a country; hence, the issue of economic empowerment of women is of paramount importance to political thinkers, social scientists and reformers. The self-help groups (SHGs) have paved the way for economic independence of rural women. The members of SHGs are involved in micro-entrepreneurships. Empowerment is intellectual capital. Capital is a life blood of any industry.

Without women development, economic development will not take place. Women should be imparted technical knowledge, skill training and marketing techniques in the process of establishing an enterprise by them for more sustainability.

Micro-enterprises add values to a country’s economy by creating jobs, enhancing income, strengthening purchasing power, lowering costs and adding business convenience.

Our paper empirically evaluates the impact of livelihood training programmes on entrepreneurial skills of the women Self-Help Group (SHG) members.

The study is based on primary data collected from a sample of 416 SHG women of Sikkim, India, using a multi-stage cluster sampling. A multiple linear regression model is used to assess the impact of training participation on entrepreneurial skill. We correct for the potential self-selection bias associated with training participation using Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method and estimate the Average Treatment effect on the Treated (ATT) using 1:1 Nearest neighbour matching without replacement (caliper = 0.06) and full matching algorithm. The robustness of the result is validated using Rosenbaum bounds sensitivity analysis.

The findings suggest a significant and positive relation between livelihood training programme participation and entrepreneurial skills of the SHG members which relates to Human Capital Theory.

Our paper contributes to the existing literature by empirically evaluating the impact of livelihood training on entrepreneurial skills of the SHG members. Further, our study not only corrects the problem of self-selection bias associated with training participation but also studies the influence of unobserved confounders on the estimated results ensuring generalisability of the findings. Additionally, the study is conducted across all four districts of Sikkim, a north-eastern state of India which has received less academic attention in the context of SHGs and its activities.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2024-0100

This paper aims to explore the entrepreneurial journey of select women entrepreneurs from South India to provide qualitative insights into the factors influencing their career choice (to become and continue as an entrepreneur) and to identify the drivers of their growth and well-being.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather data from 35 women entrepreneurs in the micro, small and medium enterprises sectors of Tamil Nadu, India. Data were content analyzed using NVivo 12.

Qualitative content analysis identified three broad themes and several sub-themes to suggest a conceptual framework reflecting the possible relationships among them. Women entrepreneurs’ career choice, the growth of their ventures and their well-being were found to be significantly driven by a blend of personal attributes, strong family support and institutional support.

The findings will help the government to provide appropriate institutional support with customized initiatives and incentives to encourage women-owned tiny and small businesses to grow faster. Appropriate personality development programs and skills training will aid their growth.

This study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by providing real-life insights from women entrepreneurs from an emerging economy context, especially from Tamil Nadu, which has the highest number of women entrepreneurs in India.

The purpose of the paper is to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis and systematic review to examine the research landscape of women empowerment through participation in self-help groups (SHGs), identifying the eminent contributors, intellectual communities and future research agenda in the field of SHGs and women empowerment.

The global works of literature related to the theme of SHGs and women empowerment between 1998 and May 6, 2022 were scanned for bibliometric analysis and systematic review. A total of 176 English language documents from the Scopus database were extracted. Bibliometric analysis is conducted using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer software.

This study finds that SHGs are paramount in achieving rural women’s empowerment multidimensionally. Found that India is the most contributing country with 136 documents, and Ranjula Bali Swain and Fan Yang Wallentin are the most cited authors in the research field of SHGs and women empowerment. In addition, the paper proposes a comprehensive conceptual framework to portray rudimentary antecedents of women’s empowerment achieved through participation in SHGs.

This bibliometric analysis, along with a systematic review demonstrating a framework encapsulating the principal dimensions of women empowerment and their indicators, will be helpful to practitioners, government, policymakers and researchers working in the area of SHGs and women empowerment.

This study recognizes numerous significant contributions by eminent scholars and presents a concise review of the literature for novice researchers working in the area of SHGs and women empowerment.

Microbusinesses are better able to assist many disadvantaged groups in finding employment and breaking the cycle of poverty because they require less initial capital and employ a large number of poor people in developing economies. Women run and own the majority of micro-businesses in urban Ethiopia. This study aims to investigate women’s microbusiness participation decisions and the effect on poverty in the Wolaita zone southern Ethiopia.

A cross-sectional study was carried out using a mixed-methods research approach. A total of 384 women who owned micro-businesses were chosen using a systematic random sampling technique, while 36 women were purposefully chosen for qualitative data analysis. Data were gathered through survey questionnaires, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The collected data were analyzed by using a propensity score matching technique as well as contextual analysis.

The study discovered that women’s participation in registered micro-businesses had a higher and more beneficial impact on their food, non-food and overall consumer spending than women’s participation in unregistered microbusinesses, which helped to reduce poverty. Besides, overall women’s participation in micro-business increased their decision-making power and enabled them to provide resources for their families food and non-food consumption, with registered micro-business participants reaping the greatest benefits.

This research focused on the effects of women’s micro-entrepreneurship on poverty in low-income communities. Rather than providing food, clothing and/or other aid to women in disadvantaged communities, the authors asserted that assisting women and their micro-businesses allows them to be self-sufficient in terms of food and clothing as a long-term solution to poverty reduction. As a result, policymakers can use our findings to gain a better understanding of how women’s micro-entrepreneurship affects poverty reduction, allowing them to develop more effective anti-poverty initiatives. This study’s findings are novel and add to the body of knowledge in Ethiopia and the sub-Saharan African region.

The contribution of women toward entrepreneurial activities has gained significant attention in recent years because of economic and social concerns, government support and initiatives and increased education and awareness. Women’s entrepreneurial activity has increased and women-owned businesses can today be found in every sector of the economy, irrespective of region. In India, government bodies such as the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and several other organizations (private and NGOs) have adopted considerable measures to promote women entrepreneurship (WE). To improve WE, the critical factors of WE adoption need to be identified and evaluated. The purpose of this paper is to identify, prioritize and evaluate the critical success factors of WE adoption in Indian MSMEs.

This paper proposes a methodology based on fuzzy analytical hierarchal process to prioritize the critical success factors of WE adoption. A numerical analysis of Indian MSMEs is presented to demonstrate the use of the proposed method. This proposed method considered fuzzy framework, which can handle impreciseness and uncertainty. Sensitivity analysis is also performed to test the robustness of the proposed model.

Potential critical success factors are identified from relevant literature and validated by industry experts. This research finalize the critical success factors of WE adoption in Indian MSMEs under seven dimensions, so prioritization of identified critical success factors can be developed and insights relationship of factors would be explored. The results of the study found that individual, management and government dimensions take paramount importance while women aim to become entrepreneurs in Indian MSMEs.

This study is limited to identifying evaluation factors; other factors have not been identified and categorized. Evaluation is one by experts in this area so it is natural that views of decision-makers may be subjective and vary with regard to industry-type, priorities, resources, etc.

This study will help industry to identify, evaluate and prioritize factors for successful implementation of women entrepreneurship. MSMEs could device these factors by applying the outcome of the study in their decisions with higher priority to implement women entrepreneurship culture.

Potential factors are identified from relevant literature and validated by industry experts. Indian MSMEs could device these factors by applying the outcome of the study in their decisions with higher priority to adopt women entrepreneurship.

The present study analyses the impact of participation in the self-help group (SHG)-based micro-financial activities (PSMFA) on the financial literacy (FL) of women.

The data were collected from Kudumbashree NHG members from the State of Kerala, India, selected through a multi-stage random sampling method. The relationship is examined by employing multiple linear regression (MLR) and artificial neural network (ANN) analyses.

The PSMFA was found to be improving the FL level of SHG members. Participation in FL promotion programmes of the SHGs did not significantly influence the FL of the SHG members. While higher educational levels and increased family income positively influenced the FL of SHG members, factors such as age, occupation, family type and marital status did not exhibit a significant impact.

To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to analyse the impact of PSMFA on the FL of the SHG members.