Behind the veil: women-only entrepreneurship training in Pakistan

Practical implications – For women entrepreneurs living in an Islamic society, this analysis has implications for understanding the importance and effectiveness of entrepreneurial training especially in a women-only setting. For policy makers, it turns the spotlight on the need for creating an environment conducive to female entrepreneurship consistent with socio-cultural structures and gender asymmetries. Originality/value – There are no comparable previous data on the learning preferences and outcomes of this particular demographic group.Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the gender-related challenges of Pakistani women entrepreneurs, to explore these women's particular capacity-building needs, and to assess the impact of capacity-building programs on the establishment and performance of the women's enterprises. Design/methodology/approach – The paper begins with a review of various theoretical contexts through which to understand women's entrepreneurship in an Islamic socio-cultural context. From this, the paper derived two working propositions: women in Islamic Pakistan face particular barriers to becoming entrepreneurs; these barriers can be reduced by women-only training in entrepreneurial competences. These propositions are examined in a three-part longitudinal process: a field survey to gather information about the training needs of current and potential women entrepreneurs, the design and delivery of a women-only training module, a follow-up survey with participants, 18 months later. Subjects and participants were randomly selected, and segmented according to entrepreneurial factors and characteristics. Findings – Results confirm that the barriers perceived by women entrepreneurs in Islamic Pakistan can be alleviated through women-only training that allows participants to develop capital and competences. Greater clarity about learning outcomes desired and achieved by women entrepreneurs in an Islamic socio-cultural context can be a basis for designing improved training and education programmes, with a view to women's economic empowerment

Entrepreneurial leadership: what is it and how should it be taught?

Main ArticleWe offer a comprehensive review of the literature relating to entrepreneurial leadership, noting that there are diverse understandings of the concept and little exploration of how best to teach it. We next present empirical data from a survey of teaching practices at 51 HEIs in the UK that indicate little explicit teaching of entrepreneurial leadership. Drawing on this literature and data, we make recommendations for the design of teaching materials that emphasise the relevance of leadership in entrepreneurship education and of entrepreneurship in leadership education

Exploring Recent Developments in Determinants of Intra Industry Trade in Pakistan: A Case Study of Pakistan

The present study explores the key determinants of intra industry trade in Pakistan by collecting time series data from 1972 to 2014. By utilizing log – log form of the model, the ARDL bound testing approach finalizes long run relationship among all the variables. The long run results reveals that roads, vehicles, gross capital formation, national saving, exchange rate and tax revenue are positively associated with Intra Industry Trade of Pakistan while broad money is negatively related with Intra Industry trade. Keywords: Roads, Vehicles, Gross Capital Formation, Broad Money, National Saving, Exchange Rate, Tax Revenue, Intra Industry Trad

Impact of Corporate Governance on Firm Financial Performance in Financial Sector

The study of Insurance has proved that there is positive relationship between the corporate governance and financial performance. However this study has focused on only three determinants of corporate governance (CEO Duality, board independent and audit committee independence)

Training needs for women-owned SMEs in England

Originality/value – The study offers original primary research into the contributory growth factors for women-owned enterprises in a representative area of Britain, identifies key issues, maps survival and success factors, and assesses women entrepreneurs' training needs and preferences.Purpose – The purpose of this research is to investigate the needs and preferences for training among growth-oriented women-owned SMEs in the East of England. Design/methodology/approach – Quantitative data were collected through 108 on-line questionnaires, and the means analysed using SPSS. Qualitative data collected in response to open-ended questions were inductively analysed and interpreted. Findings – Only one fourth of respondents received growth-oriented training in the previous two years, with an average duration of 3-5 days per year. Programmes most in demand concerned innovation and opportunity recognition, business evaluation and growth considerations, developing strategic customers and customers care, customer relationship management, as well as selling, networking and negotiation skills. High demand for these programmes corresponds to others results identifying contributory factors to higher enterprise performance and growth: product/service quality, new product/service development, appropriate marketing, effective use of websites, selling skills and informal networking. Research limitations/implications – The scope of the project is limited to service sectors and sole proprietorships. Geographic scope is limited to the East of England. These limits nonetheless provide a reasonable base and rationale for the scope of the study. Practical implications – With a better understanding of the capacity building requirements of women entrepreneurs in growth businesses, appropriately designed training programmes can be developed to help women achieve higher levels of entrepreneurial success

An analysis of marketing programmes adopted by regional small and medium-sized enterprises

Originality/value – Their ability to understand their marketplace and to become truly competitive relies on SMEs developing a deeper understanding of their current marketing decision-making processes through the systematic adoption of more robust strategic procedures. In summary, there is an observable difference between marketing activities conducted by SMEs and best practice defined in academic theory.Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to create an understanding of the true nature of contemporary SME marketing activities. While acknowledging operational constraints, the paper aims to hypothesize that, if effective marketing planning was employed, this would improve the long-term growth of small to medium-sized enterprises. The paper seeks to assess the implications current practices may have on the long-term survival of enterprises and to identify significant SME marketing development and training needs. Design/methodology/approach – A marketing audit approach yielded data from the collation of 125 completed online questionnaires within the East of England region. Statistical analysis using SPSS was applied to produce an in-depth quantitative analysis of these data. In addition, qualitative data were collected through face-to-face interviews of some 20 owner-managers. These responses were further inductively analysed and interpreted. Findings – Data analysis demonstrated a significant disparity between their perceived marketing effectiveness compared with their actual practices recorded at interview. Significantly, they failed to understand why campaigns did not yield results, as they routinely did not employ appropriate controls and procedures. SMEs believed that they were fully cognisant of the effectiveness of their marketing activity, through further exploration; evidence revealed that they failed to employ sufficient review procedures, and in the extreme cases these procedures were non-existent. A direct correlation was also witnessed between company size and the application of effective marketing planning. Larger enterprises demonstrated a greater awareness of strategic marketing competence

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN PAKISTAN, INDIA AND INDONESIA

In this study an attempt has been made to investigate the effects of economic factors on foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into Pakistan, India and Indonesia. Simple loglinear regression model for each country has been used and the method of least squares has been applied. Empirical results show that market size, domestic investment, tradeopenness, and physical infrastructure are the important economic determinants of FDI.Further, this study also found that the empirical results of the economic determinants of India matched with empirical results of Pakistan except two determinates (i.e., tradeopenness and government consumption), while that of Indonesia do not match with Pakistan and India. For attracting more FDI into Pakistan and India, the management authorities’ needs to ensure economic and political stability, provision of infrastructure, peace and security, encouraging domestic investment and adoption of appropriate macroeconomic stabilization policy. Furthermore, this study recommend the same measures for Indonesia and suggest that more future research work are required for empirical investigation of determinants of FDI in Indonesia, to enhance the desirable level of FDI into the country.

Women-owned small and medium enterprises in England: analysis of factors influencing the growth process

Practical implications – This research has implications for government or other business development agencies seeking to understand the growth patterns and problems of women-owned enterprises in the East of England. Originality/value – There are few British studies that have focussed on growth oriented women-owned businesses. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by attempting to understand the nature and activities of such business, by analysing the main growth factors and their influence on different growth strategies.Purpose – This study attempts to understand the nature and activities of growth-oriented women-owned businesses in the East of England by highlighting the problems faced by women entrepreneurs during the growth process. Design/methodology/approach – The approach analysed the main growth factors and their influence on the adoption of different growth strategies. An online questionnaire was designed using Snap survey software™, with results exported to SPSS™ for analysis. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected via a variety of scaled, open-ended, rank order, dichotomous, multiple choice and open questions. Findings – The research indicates that most do not opt to develop growth-oriented businesses, choosing instead small, non-scalable, locally focused businesses providing services or operating in low-tech industries. Women who are growth-oriented appear to be inhibited due to a lack of access to, and control over such resources as, capital, business premises, information and technology, production inputs, appropriate childcare, qualifications, experience, training facilities and appropriate assistance from business development agencies. Non-effective accumulation and use of social capital hinders access to appropriate decision-making circles, and limits the probability of accessing critical management and financing resources, especially through the venture capital industry

The commercialisation of BDS through an NGO: case study of AKRSP-Pakistan

Book ChapterBased on the theme of how donors can play a more effective role to stimulate effective and sustainable provision of BDS by or through private sector intermediaries, this case study looks at how the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) has sought to encourage the development of markets for Business Development Services (BDS) in the remote areas of northern Pakistan. This paper explores that the isolation of the region, poor infrastructure, small scale of landholdings, and lack of economic development leads to problems when attempting to promote markets for business development services. In the short term, the priority is the development of more basic markets, rather than markets for business development services. Without active markets there are a few opportunities for BDS provision let alone the development of vibrant private sector markets for BDS. It specifies the geographic, economic, political, and institutional context in which the AKRSP’s interventions have been implemented. Grassroots village based initiatives have been discussed, where groups of farmers are facilitated by AKRSP to provide BDS to neighboring farmers (farmers interest groups in Chitral), along with more structured formal approaches such as the more direct provision of BDS through commercial entity associated with AKRSP (North South Seeds). It is argued that both models have a positive impact on MSME performance and lead to market development in the long run. Both are methods through which donors can promote BDS markets but which model is most appropriate depends on the market being served. Where the service offered is relatively simple and the business of the BDS provider is relatively straight-forward, facilitating private sector intermediaries may be the most effective way of creating markets for BDS. However, where the service is complex and there is a need to establish a sophisticated organisation to provide the service, it may be necessary to set up an organisation within the NGO, on commercially sustainable basis if possible, with a view to fully commercialising and ideally privatising the organisation over time