Socio-cultural motivation in women's entrepreneurship: Exploring the handloom industry in Assam

This paper attempts to develop a few measures or scales of entrepreneurial motives of women, given the socio-cultural factors in developing economies. Within the push-pull theory of entrepreneurial motivation, we use exploratory factor analysis with an orthogonal varimax rotation technique to examine entrepreneurial motivation, integrating it with socio-cultural beliefs. We identify five entrepreneurial motives-self-dependence, preserving handloom culture, providing monetary support, formal job environment, and work-flexibility. Within socially constructed gender roles, generic desires of women are crucial for entrepreneurial behavior. Contrary to existing findings, we found that women with a higher desire to provide monetary support to their family were found to be less likely to become micro-entrepreneurs, which can be accounted for their poor economic conditions, a significant risk-averse attitude, and credit constraints. The scales constructed could be used across cultures, especially in developing economies. Their replication should provide an understanding of why women micro-entrepreneurs tend to be concentrated in specific sectors, resulting in gender segregation. Given the context specific measurement items, scholars interested in studying socio-cultural attributes in entrepreneurial motivation can further develop and validate the multi-item constructs that distinguish women's motivations for specific activities.