Leveraging Economy through MSMEs: Recent Trends and Challenges of Women’s Entrepreneurship in South India

摘要

The new millennium is seen as an epoch of entrepreneurship with entrepreneursudperceiving novel opportunities, organizing resources, undertaking risks to pursueudtheir goals in establishing innovative ventures for scaling new horizons. Womenudentrepreneurs have the potency to confront numerous challenges, such as creatingudequity, equilibrium, ensuring sustainable and inclusive socio economic developmentudin divergent economies, by seizing tremendous business opportunities in theudcontemporary commercial world. Kerala, the southern State of India, is experiencingudan economic renovation through technological transformation and, in particular,udthrough the growth of women oriented Micro, Small and Medium Enterprisesud(MSMEs). The study aims to; identify the growth trends of women’s entrepreneurshipudin the micro enterprises of Kerala; examine whether women’s entrepreneurial activitiesudsignificantly vary across the form of women owned enterprises, type of organizationudand nature of activity; and also explore the prospects and challenges faced by womenudentrepreneurs through micro entrepreneurial activities. Research methodologyudinvolves the application of descriptive quantitative analysis on the secondary dataudprimarily collected from the database of Directorate of Industries and District IndustriesudCentre for a period of 7 years extending from 2007-08 to 2013-14. Findings reveal thatudMSMEs spawn better income distribution, by operating in heterogeneous areas of theudeconomy with limited capital and creating more employment opportunities, therebyudreducing poverty and inequalities. The trend analysis reflects an escalation in theudnumber of enterprises, investments, profits and employment opportunities generatedudespecially through micro enterprises of women. They play a crucial role in the economyudin terms of creating self employment and generating employment opportunities forudothers. A paradigm shift is seen in the role of women’s entrepreneurship in terms ofudinnovation, attitudes, leadership qualities, competitiveness, entrepreneurial skill andudabsorbing new entrants to the job market, empowering marginalized women.