28.1 Introduction

The twenty-first century has witnessed a paradigm shift in the role of women from being simply a home maker to a career oriented professional. This in turn led to improvement in their economic strength as well as position in society. Having realized this present day, modern women do not want to confine themselves within the boundaries of their houses. Women entrepreneurship is an act of owning a business, which makes women economically independent. It has been found that an estimated 126 million women were starting or managing new businesses in 67 countries around the world. In addition, an estimated 98 million were running established businesses. Globally men make up 52% of all entrepreneurial activity and remaining 48% of them constituted women entrepreneurs. The gender gap in entrepreneurial activities varies across the world. It ranges from 1.5 to 45.4% women of the adult population (Kelley 2012).

Women entrepreneurship is considered to be instrumental in women’s empowerment and improvement in their quality of life. Entrepreneurial activity originates at the individual level and can always be traced back to a single person, the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is, hence, induced by an individual’s attitudes or motives, skills and psychological endowments. The gender gap in entrepreneurship is defined as the difference between men and women in terms of numbers engaged in entrepreneurial activity, motives to start or run a business, industry choice and business performance and growth. Most entrepreneurship research on individual level analysis has focused on the entrepreneurial activities of male entrepreneurs. Few Researchers in their study has criticized earlier research findings stating that there is no significant difference in male and female entrepreneurs (Carter and Cannon 1988). Several other studies were conducted with a focus on studying the gender differences in entrepreneurship. It has been observed through the studies that women entrepreneurs are different from that of men in terms of characteristics, background, motivation, entrepreneurial skills and the problems faced by them (Hisrich and Candida 1984; Lituchy and Reavley 2015; Bird and Brush 2002).

Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute (GEDI) conducted a study and ranked India at 70 among 77 countries. In this study, India has obtained a score of 25.3 in the Female Entrepreneurship Index and the study suggested a need for significant changes to reduce the barriers for female entrepreneurs in India. This study further identified that, women entrepreneurs in India were more opportunity driven than necessity driven (Terjesen and Lloyd 2015). BNP Paribas Global Entrepreneurialism Report has ranked India on top for the highest percentage of successful women entrepreneurs. Nearly half (49%) of successful entrepreneurs in India are female entrepreneurs. A majority of these businesses are in the micro sector (BNP Paribas 2015). One of the major study highlighted that micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME’s) have been recognized as a fundamental driver for creating, running and growing business and consequently the economic growth of a country and this is no different for Indian economy as well (Ascher 2012). As mentioned in International finance corporation, world Bank and small and medium enterprises report (IFC Issue Brief/Small and Medium Enterprises 2010), globally MSME’s constitutes about 90% of the business enterprises. This research intends to study the various motivational factors and clarifies the fact that how these factors influence the entrepreneurial intention of women entrepreneurs. The focus is also made to understand the entrepreneurial intention among women in particular studying the motivational factors that leads to entrepreneurial potential in women entrepreneurs.

28.2 Literature Review

Most entrepreneurship research on individual level analysis has focused on the entrepreneurial activities of male entrepreneurs. Rapid increase in the number of women owned enterprises across different countries has attracted several researchers’ interest. There are not much attempts made to conduct a nation-wide comprehensive research study in order to understand the motivation, issues and challenges of women entrepreneurs. Most of the research studies are cross sectional or longitudinal studies focusing on specific regions within India, which includes Tamilnadu, Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala (Marichamy 2013; Mani 2011; Thomas and Lavanya 2012; Mustafa 2013; Shah and Mustafa 2014; Kurbah 2013; Nagalakshmi 2015; Tarakeswara and Tulasi 2013; Shiralashetti 2014; Dwivedi and Mishra 2013; Chandrasekar et al. 2008).

An attempt is made in this study to fill these literature gaps. Hence, the literature highlights the various motivational factors and the role of these factors in influencing entrepreneurial intention among women. The comprehensive review of literature has been divided into three sections: defining Women entrepreneurship, motivational factors and its role in increasing Entrepreneurial Intention.

28.2.1 Defining Women Entrepreneurship

Women entrepreneurship is a subset of entrepreneurship; it also faces the difficulty of single or commonly accepted definition for the same. Researchers have defined women entrepreneurship in several ways; Table 28.1 summarizes some of these definitions.

Table 28.1 Selected definitions of women entrepreneurship
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Definition of micro, small and medium enterprises was given under Micro, small and medium enter-prises development (MSMED) Act, 2006 is considered for this study. This act defines women entrepreneurship as “a business entity which owned and managed by a woman” (Ahl 2006). It was in 1970s that the Government of India began to promote and focus on self-employment among women. Because of these initiatives, in late ninety’s the concept of women entrepreneurship gained prominence. Women owned enterprises account for 25% of them. American Express OPEN report on ‘State of women owned business’ ranks India at 16th in terms of revenue generation by women owned enterprises. In 2009, a study carried out by Centre for women’s business research indicates women entrepreneurs in India were growing twice as fast as the other business (Mallya 2012). After an extensive analysis of these studies, the following key themes emerged background, profile, characteristics, motivation and entrepreneurial Intention.

28.2.2 Women Entrepreneurship and Motivation

Entrepreneurial Motivation is the drive of an entrepreneur to maintain an entrepreneurial spirit in all their actions. It is an inner state, dynamic force that causes a person to act towards the attainment of goals. To accomplish entrepreneurial goals, the entrepreneur must have a drive, which activates him/her to persistently exert a certain level of effort (Mallya 2012). It includes two types of factors i.e. (Cavada et al. 2017) Push and Pull factors. Necessity Driven Factors (Push Factors) are those that forces a woman to become an entrepreneur. It includes unemployment, dissatisfaction from the job, career development and family conditions. Opportunity Driven Factors (Pull factors) are those factors that act as an opportunity and pulls a woman to choose entrepreneurial activity as a career. It include desire to generate income, provide employment to others, choose profession as a challenge, desire for self and social recognition, desire to be independent, utilization of own experience and education, keeping oneself busy, family support and encouragement, autonomy, market opportunity, knowledge and skills.

28.2.3 Entrepreneurial Intention

Entrepreneurial intention is defined as a state of mind that ultimately leads an individual towards forming a new business concept and making a career in entrepreneurship. Literature review revealed thirteen intention based theories. Extended Social Cognitive Career Theory and Entrepreneurial Potential Model are studied most predominantly. These two models holistically cover the major constructs mentioned in other leading entrepreneurial intention theories. This study addresses the above gaps by developing a conceptual model, which adapts Extended Social Cognitive Career Theory and Entrepreneurial Potential Model, followed by pan India data collection (Krueger and Carsrud 1995; Lent et al. 1994; Lent et al. 2000; Irengun and Arikboga 2015; Nga and Shamuganathan 2010).

28.3 Proposed Framework

As envisaged in the literature review, we have observed crucial gaps. To overcome those gaps, a conceptual model has been developed which aims to serve the objective of the research study i.e. promoting women entrepreneurship in Indian MSME’s. The model has used various constructs in order to understand the role of Motivation in entrepreneurial activity. The conceptual model that we have used for PAN India study is presented as follows (see Fig. 28.1).

Fig. 28.1
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Conceptual model for the study (Lent et al. 1994; Nga and Shamuganathan 2010)

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In the proposed framework, motivational factors lead to perceived desirability, which is defined as “the degree to which starting a new venture is perceived as a desirable career option”. Perceived desirability leads to entrepreneurial potential. Potential Entrepreneurs are defined as the individuals who are desirable and feasible to become an entrepreneur but are not willing to act on it. Individuals with high entrepreneurial potential are found to have high intention towards entrepreneurship. As mentioned by Krueger and Carsrud (1995) in their study entrepreneurial potential is measured through entrepreneurial mindset. Entrepreneurial mindset further can be measured from the i.e. optimism, cognitive flexibility, entrepreneurial intensity and entrepreneurial potential, action control scale. Finally, entrepreneurial potential leads to entrepreneurial intention (Krueger 2015).

28.4 Methodology

In-depth study of literature on women entrepreneurs has provided insight on motivational factors that contribute to entrepreneurial activities. To understand the entrepreneurial intention among women entrepreneurs in India, a nation-wide study has been done using a survey method. An instrument has been designed and administered among women entrepreneurs using cluster and snowball sampling. The study adopts exploratory and descriptive research design capitalizing on primary and secondary data. This study seeks to clarify the construct of entrepreneurial intention and then reports the validation of Entrepreneurial Intention instrument. To understand the relationship between the variables, hypothesis testing has been done using Pearson Correlation. Spearmen’s Correlation is used to understand the strength of relationship between motivational factors, perceived desirability, entrepreneurial potential and intention.

28.5 Analysis

28.5.1 Descriptive Analysis

Descriptive statistics is required to explain the basic features of data in the study through measure of central tendency, measure of variability and measure of dispersion. It forms a major component of quantitative data analysis. This analysis explained in measuring the distributional aspects of data to cluster around central value, symmetry of data and variability within the data. As presented in Table 28.2, the values for central tendency are found to be ranging between 8.7184 and 84.242 for the mean, 7.000–83.000 for median. The values for measuring the spread are found to be in the range of 1.149–12.248. The values for dispersion are found to be in the range of −1.023 to 0.897 for skewness and 0.102–1.942 for kurtosis. The ranges obtained during explained that the data is symmetrical, normally distributed, bell shaped, centered and unimodal.

Table 28.2 Descriptive analysis
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28.5.2 Reliability Analysis

Reliability measures the degree to which the instrument can yield same results on repeated trials. In order to evaluate a survey instrument, an internal consistency check has been performed using Cronbach’s alpha test. The employed indicators in the instrument has resulted in high reliability with the threshold level of Cronbach alpha greater than or equal to 0.60 on average. As mentioned in Table 28.3 the composite reliability shows outputs that range from 0.597 to 0.752, which is nearly equivalent and larger than the threshold level 0.6. The Inter-item Correlation matrix represents a mean value of 0.039–0.165, which signifies that all the items are positively correlated and measures a single unidimensional latent construct. The employed indicators for all the mentioned constructs i.e. Motivational factors, Perceived desirability, Entrepreneurial potential and Entrepreneurial intention are found to be reliable and hence justifying the adequacy of the sample.

Table 28.3 Reliability analysis
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28.5.3 Validity Test

The Content Validity is defined as an extent to which a variable represents all facets of a given construct. An attempt has been made for content clarity using Delphi method by performing the check for wordings, statements for the instruments by experts in this field. Construct validity is defined as the degree to which a test measures what it claims to be measuring. It explains the nature of an underlying construct along with its relationship with other constructs in an instrument. In order to understand the association of variables, Pearson product correlation analysis has been conducted as presented in Table 28.4. There are two subsets of construct validity i.e. convergent and discriminant construct validity. Convergent construct validity tests the relationship between the construct and a similar measure while discriminant validity tests the relationships between the construct and an unrelated measure. In order to have good construct validity one must have a strong relationship with convergent construct validity and no relationship for discriminant construct validity.

Table 28.4 Pearson-correlation matrix
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As observed in the Table 28.4, it has found that i.e. entrepreneurial intensity shows a convergent relationship with optimism i.e. 0.651 at significant level 0.01 and also shows similar relationship with Cognitive Flexibility i.e. 0.570 at significant level 0.01 which further explains the variables are correlated and measures the same construct i.e. Entrepreneurial Potential. The discriminant relationship has been observed too in case of perceived feasibility and intention, optimism, cognitive flexibility and perceived desirability which explains the fact that these variables are discriminant. Hence, it explains that the instrument used for the study is valid.

28.5.4 Hypothesis Testing

In order to understand the strength and direction of association between the variables, the Spearmen’s correlation test has performed. The following hypothesis has been tested as presented in Table 28.5.

Table 28.5 Hypothesis statement
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Table 28.6 Spearmen’s correlation test
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The results presented in Table 28.6 shows that there is a significant positive correlation between Motivation and Perceived desirability (rs = 0.29, N = 397, p = 0.003, two-tailed). It is observed that Perceived desirability and Entrepreneurial potential exhibited positive correlation (rs = 0.37, N = 397, p < 0.001, two-tailed). Also, the positive correlation has found between various constructs i.e., Entrepreneurial potential and Entrepreneurial intention (rs = 0.35, N = 397, p = 0.001, two-tailed), Motivation and Entrepreneurial potential (rs = 0.22, N = 397, p = 0.026, two-tailed) and Motivation and Entrepreneurial intention (rs = 0.80, N = 397, p < 0.001, two-tailed) at 0.05 and 0.01 significant level respectively. The empirical analysis implies that all the hypotheses are accepted.

Further to this, the result suggests that the increase in motivation among women entrepreneurs lead to high-perceived desirability, which in turn will lead to more entrepreneurial potential and hence resulting in more venture creation.

28.6 Findings, Conclusion and Recommendation

This research was mainly conceptualized to understand the constructs of Entrepreneurial intention. The study addressed the role of motivation in influencing perceived desirability, entrepreneurial potential towards the entrepreneurial intention. In addition, it was observed that Push factors enable the perceived feasibility more than the pull factors. Through hypothesis testing the above relationship among constructs were validated and established. It also confirms that for any behavior to happen among women entrepreneurs, the antecedents like motivational factors, perceived feasibility and entrepreneurial potential plays a major role. These findings are in line with the previous literature on how motivational factors lead to entrepreneurial intentions through entrepreneurial potential.

As stated from the Government perspective, this model will help in designing Training and Development programs for promoting women entrepreneurship in India. It will also help the policy makers, educational institutions and incubation centers to look into the lines of promoting women entrepreneurship in India with a systematic approach.