Social Resources and Enterprise Success among Micro and Small Women Entrepreneurs in Uganda

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to explore micro and small enterprise (MSE) women understanding of enterprise success, and how among other factors social resources are related to enterprise success. The paper explores what MSE women entrepreneurs perceive as success along with rationale for such perceptions. The paper tests four hypotheses, and uses SEM to elicit interesting findings. These are complemented by qualitative results to shed light into the relationship between social resources, entrepreneurial competence and enterprise success. The study combines both qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse data collected from MSE women entrepreneurs in Uganda, East Africa. The data were collected through face-to-face interviews and detailed discussions with the entrepreneurs. Findings indicate that MSE women entrepreneurs perceive enterprise success both in financial and non-financial terms. Entrepreneurial competence plays a mediating role between social resources and enterprise success. Social resources are negatively related to enterprise financial success but positively related to enterprise non-financial success.

Keywords: social resources, women entrepreneurs, financial success, non-financial success, entrepreneurial competence, Uganda, resources, trust, emancipation, micro enterprise