Role of Innovative Practices in Growth of Women Entrepreneurs: Case Studies in Belgaum District

It is a well-accepted fact that in today's global environment, the key to sustainable economic development is entrepreneurial development in an economy. Findings of GEM studies reveal that there are three types of entrepreneurs: necessity entrepreneurs, opportunity entrepreneurs and innovation entrepreneurs. In developed economies there are a large number of opportunity and innovation entrepreneurs. In developing economies there are a large number of necessity entrepreneurs, whereas opportunity and innovation entrepreneurs form a negligible proportion.

In India, there are a large number of necessity entrepreneurs. Innovation entrepreneurs form an insignificant proportion of entrepreneurs in the country. Women entrepreneurship which is still in its nascent stages is largely necessity based. It is observed that the size of businesses owned by women is small in size and continues to remain small. To facilitate growth, women entrepreneurs must adopt innovative practices in the areas of operations, marketing and technology.

Growth of a business has five stages - Existence, Survival, Success - Disengage or Success -Growth, Takeoff and Resource Maturity. Most women entrepreneurs on reaching the Success stage prefer to Disengage rather than to Grow.

This paper is based on case studies research where an in-depth interview was conducted in a systematic manner to gather information on the growth of the business of a few women entrepreneurs and the factors facilitating the growth. The findings of this pilot study revealed that the most critical factor in the business reaching the Take-off or Resource Maturity stage is their ability to continually innovate and take risk. The findings of the case studies will form the basis for formulation of hypothesis and testing. The limitations of this case study method are that the findings are qualitative and cannot be generalized unless scientific analysis of data is applied using appropriate statistical measures.