Factors Motivating Female Entrepreneurs in Kuwait

IntroductionKuwait is a small country. According to World Bank statistics for 2013, the Kuwaiti population reached 3.37 million persons. The number of Kuwaitis is 1.039 million, while the rest are non-Kuwaitis. Kuwaiti society shares its Islamic religion, Arabic language, economic status, and identity, but it has maintained a culturally unique position among Arab and Islamic countries with its different social, political, and cultural views. In the last three decades, females have played an active role in the country's economic and social development. Kuwaiti females have become teachers, engineers, doctors, ambassadors, business women, lawyers, managers, administrators, and government ministers at various levels (Tetreault, 2001). In short, it is fair to say that Kuwaiti females have made noticeable progress toward improving their status and attaining gender equality in the political, social, educational, legal, and medical professions. Yet, only a limited number of female entrepreneurs are to be found. Hence, female entrepreneurship is attracting special research attention among scholars. The initial concern in previous research was whether a difference exists between males and females in terms of personal values or strategies that affect their entrepreneurial performance.Empirical studies have shown that female entrepreneurs play a significant role in fostering the economic and social development of society. They show that women benefit from family support in starting their business. The studies also show that the most significant barriers are lack of financial support and lack of acceptance of the idea by parents. It is shown that female entrepreneurs who run small businesses are related to traditional female roles' in the work area.The purpose of this study is to identify factors that encourage or discourage women entrepreneurship in Kuwait and to explore the marketing approaches that women entrepreneurs use to get in touch with customers. Studying female entrepreneurs in Kuwait is important because of the significant increase in their participation in higher education. Moreover, they are playing a growing role in the social and economic development of Kuwait by offering new jobs, reducing the unemployment rate, and raising incomes. A number of Kuwaiti's females who own small and medium sized firms are expected to grow rapidly as a result of the rapid growth in the higher education of females.The article is organized as follows: The next section reviews the literature and previous studies. A brief description of the research methodology is presented in section 3. While the findings and results are discussed in section 4, the conclusion, limitations and directions for future research are all offered in the last section.Literature ReviewAn entrepreneur is a person who tolerates risks and initiates something new (Hisrich, Peters & Shepherd, 2012) and is the individual who discovers the opportunity for creating profit-making businesses (Pun, 2011). The entrepreneur is responsible not only for making a profit, but also for creating employment opportunities for others (Jesurajan & Gnanadhas, 2011). Entrepreneurship helps in creating employment opportunities and stimulating economic growth (Naser, Mohammad, & Nuseibeh, 2009). However, entrepreneurs are defined here for research purposes as persons who generate a new business for profit and employ at least one paid individual.Global ResearchSeveral studies conducted outside the United States have examined the start-up and operational constraints of female entrepreneurs and will provide a good comparison context for the current study in Kuwait4.Ljunggren and Kolvereid (1996) explored the differences between men and women entrepreneurs in Norway. They found that women entrepreneurs perceived themselves as having a higher internal drive than their male counterparts. The researchers suggest that women go through a more thorough self-screening process than men prior to entering the business formation process. …