Promoting Women’s Entrepreneurship through SME: Growth and Development in the context of Bangladesh

Abstract

Women's entrepreneurship is an inevitable part of country's economic development process. The main objective of this study is to having an overview of women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh and growth situation through SME. The issue covered by this study are socio-demographic profile of women entrepreneur, types of women owned entrepreneur, regulatory procedures, training and capacity building and human resources development through women's empowerment. The study also focused on role of SME to promoting women entrepreneurs. It also explores the social perspective of women entrepreneurs as well as the impact of these entrepreneurs on the economic development of Bangladesh. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods adapting with primary data collection process were applied to explore information from sample unit of women entrepreneur of Chittagong region in Bangladesh. A semi structured questionnaire survey was conducted to collect primary data. Data were analyzed using various statistical software including SPSS, MS Excel. The findings shows that women's entrepreneurship of Bangladesh is growing at accelerate rate and their contribution to socioeconomic development is significant. It is observed that 62.5% of the respondents took the SME loan to establish and run their business smoothly. This study found some problems facing by women's entrepreneur of Bangladesh. The paper made an analytical framework to analyze the factors relating to problem and development issue in used institutional theory. This study found some problems facing by women's entrepreneur of Bangladesh. This study also suggested some policy and their possible implications for improving women entrepreneurship so that they can make contribution to the economic development process.