A Research on Community Development and Women Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Although Turkish economy system was based on a patriarchal community for a long time, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of Modern Turkish Republic, has been promoted innovative policies for female citizens to incorporate them into social and economic life. Thanks to those policies, crucial changes have emerged especially for well-educated and cultivated ''urban women''. In this respect, conventional social construct and economic system have been a burden for some of those ''urban women''. They both took care of their families and joined the economic system and raised their career expectations. In recent years, there are some entrepreneurship curriculums and financial support projects has been launched for women who would like to take an active role in business life. Those projects provide opportunity for Turkish women to create their own business instead of working as employees. First of all, literature review on ''community development'' and ''women entrepreneurship'' was conducted in this study. Those issues considered as not only an economic issue but also social and psychological behavioral processes usually by using macro-sociological analysis method. Secondly, an empirical research performed in Denizli province, in which considerable economic moves have been realized in recent years. In this context, qualifications of women entrepreneurs who set up a business afterwards of financial and educational supports of governmental and non-governmental organizations such as Denizli Chamber of Commerce, Denizli Entrepreneurial Association, Association of Eurasian Executives and Businessmen were introduced. Furthermore, women entrepreneurs evaluated by quantitative comparison according to years