South Asian Journal of Management

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Country Institutional Profile for Women-Led Small Businesses: Evidence from a Developing Economy Context


Affiliations
1 Department of Management and Organization Studies, Faculty of Management and Finance, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
2 Department of Management, Faculty of Management and Economics, Monash University, Australia
     

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Less developed institutional environments affect the functioning of Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs). SMEs led by women have been significantly affected by the institutional environmental forces, especially in developing economies. Identifying the void in the literature that there is a lack of instrument for measuring the country institutional profile of women-led small businesses in the developing countries, present study aims to empirically validate an instrument in the Sri Lankan context. By utilizing a mixed methods approach, the study uses expert opinion surveys and focus group discussions for contextualizing the instrument, and deploys a questionnaire survey for collecting data from a sample of business students in validating the same. Providing a better understanding on the differences in the regulatory, cognitive and normative dimensions of the institutional environment of women-led small businesses, the findings show the possibility for developing economies to learn successful institutional practices from developed countries to further progress women-led small businesses.

Keywords

Country Institutional Profile, Small Business, Women-led, Developing Economy, Institutional Environment.
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  • Country Institutional Profile for Women-Led Small Businesses: Evidence from a Developing Economy Context

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Authors

Kumudinei Dissanayake
Department of Management and Organization Studies, Faculty of Management and Finance, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Ramanie Samaratunge
Department of Management, Faculty of Management and Economics, Monash University, Australia

Abstract


Less developed institutional environments affect the functioning of Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs). SMEs led by women have been significantly affected by the institutional environmental forces, especially in developing economies. Identifying the void in the literature that there is a lack of instrument for measuring the country institutional profile of women-led small businesses in the developing countries, present study aims to empirically validate an instrument in the Sri Lankan context. By utilizing a mixed methods approach, the study uses expert opinion surveys and focus group discussions for contextualizing the instrument, and deploys a questionnaire survey for collecting data from a sample of business students in validating the same. Providing a better understanding on the differences in the regulatory, cognitive and normative dimensions of the institutional environment of women-led small businesses, the findings show the possibility for developing economies to learn successful institutional practices from developed countries to further progress women-led small businesses.

Keywords


Country Institutional Profile, Small Business, Women-led, Developing Economy, Institutional Environment.

References