Women?s entrepreneurship: An investigation of factors influencing women entrepreneurs

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the main motivation factors that pulls and pushes individuals into entrepreneurship activities. However considering all these factors, personal characteristics of entrepreneurs differ when it is compared on the basis of gender. In this context, majority of research studies are generally based on male entrepreneurs and the studies on the real condition of women entrepreneurs are scarce.Only one third of new entrepreneurs are women but they have become more active in advancement of new venture creation for the last years. According to some researches, the rate of self-employed women exceeds in low-income countries rather than in high-income countries. In view of these facts, data was collected from women entrepreneurs from a low income country, specifically Kyrgyzstan. The research questionnaire focused on pull and push factors to measure their motivation of becoming entrepreneurs.This study used regression and correlation analysis to examine the relationship between motivation factors and entrepreneurship. The findings show that the main motivation factors of Kyrgyz women entrepreneurs in starting up their business are push factors such as job dissatisfaction, glass-ceiling, unemployment, and financial reasons which are generated from negative effects of economic changes. On the other hand women became successful even in hard times with their personal motives of desire for profit wealth, need for self-fulfillment, and support of already owned family businesses.