The effect of entrepreneurs' social capital level on the possibility of entrepreneurs being women: A research for Çorum province

As a human resource, women' s participation in both business life and entrepreneurial behavior is important for the country's economy. According to data from organizations such as the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development and Support Administration (KOSGEB) it is known that the ratio of women entrepreneurs compared to men entrepreneurs is quite low throughout the country. In addition, the fact that the rate of women entrepreneurs varies by region creates regional differences in terms of economic development. According to the information obtained from Çorum Chamber of Commerce and Industry, as of 2022, there are 663 women joint entrepreneurs, 647 women authorized entrepreneurs, 4874 men joint entrepreneurs, 3654 men authorized entrepreneurs in Çorum province. In this case, it is important for the regional economy that women turn to entrepreneurial activity and that women entrepreneurs earn high profits. In the study, aiming to increase the proportion of women among entrepreneurs, the effect of high social capital levels of entrepreneurs on the probability of entrepreneurs being women was investigated by logistic regression analysis. It is predicted that the high level of social capital of men as well as women will increase the partnerships of men entrepreneurs which are high in number with women entrepreneurs.In addition, it was aimed to investigate the effect of high social capital level of women entrepreneurs on the possibility of high earnings of women entrepreneurs by logistic regression analysis.A survey was applied to 411 entrepreneurs who are members of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Çorum province and independent sample T test, one-way Anova test, post-hocpairwise comparison tests and logistic regression analysis were applied to the survey data in the SPSS 27.0 program. According to the analysis findings, the social capital level of entrepreneurs; It varies according to gender, age, education level, education level of the entrepreneurs' mothers and fathers, place of birth, sector, income level of their families, earnings of their businesses, number of people in their businesses, and duration of operation of their businesses. The social capital level of women entrepreneurs varies according to age, sector, income level of their families and earnings of their businesses. According to the results of logistic regression analysis, a high level of social capital of entrepreneurs in the group and networks category has a positive effect on the probability of entrepreneurs being women. The high level of social capital of women entrepreneurs in the group and networks category has a positive effect on the probability of women entrepreneurs' high earnings and the high level of social capital of women entrepreneurs in the trust and solidarity category has a negative effect. There are several studies in the literature that investigate the relationship between women entrepreneurs and the level of social capital for Turkey. However, there are no studies investigating the effect of a high level of social capital of entrepreneurs on the probability of entrepreneurs being women and the effect of a high level of social capital of women entrepreneurs on the possibility of women entrepreneurs earning high profits for Çorum province. For this reason, it is thought that the study will create originality and contribute to the literature.