Challenges Facing Women Entrepreneurship: A Developing Country Perspective

Abstract

This article examines the challenges faced by women entrepreneurship in Kampala City, Uganda. Our main objective was to investigate the impediments to the growth of businesses owned by women. We adopted a qualitative phenomenological approach for the study in order to get an in-depth understanding of impediments to the growth of businesses owned by women. Random purposeful sampling was used to select 13 women entrepreneurs. The results indicate that competition, liquidities and financial challenges, discouragement by men, discrimination, limited family support, harassment, limited business time, lack of trainings and poor business location are the major challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in Kampala, Uganda. The study provides a significant contribution to the already existing literature on women entrepreneurship by providing initial evidence of the practical challenges they face as entrepreneurs using evidence from a developing country—Uganda. Besides, the study suggests the need to provide more entrepreneurial skills to women to enable them to manage their businesses appropriately. Also, women need to be empowered to easily access finances to help them boost their businesses to trade globally.