different statements. The items mea

different statements. The items measured time-based and strain-based
work-family conflicts for measuring
the problems faced at start-up and at
the time of the interview, a list of 15
problems were provided and the
respondents were asked to check as
many as were applicable. Information
on reasons for starting a business and
success factors were measured using
open-ended questions. In each case,
the interviewees were asked to provide their top two answers.
Almost all of the research mentioned above was based on samples
drawn exclusively from the developed world. Given the differences in
cultural, economic and technological
environment between a developing
nation such as India and the developed world, it is likely that some of
the findings mentioned above may
not be applicable to the Indian
woman entrepreneur. For example,
the research in developed nations
indicates that most work-family conflict centres on the support (or lack of
it!) received from one’s spouse in
child care and household activities.
However, in several developing
nations (including India), women
have access to paid household help
and higher levels of family support
(due to the joint family system that is
prevalent). Also, besides their
parental and spousal roles, women in
these nations have several other roles
to play (e.g., daughter, sister, and inlaw) and these may also take up considerable amounts of their time and
effort. For example, Naik (1992)
found that Indian women managers
spent a considerable amount of their
time on these social role demands.
Results and Discussion
As can be seen from Table 1, the
majority of the women entrepreneurs
studied were operating their businesses as private limited companies
that were 100% owned by themselves. Only a third were partnerships- with the spouse (31%) or a
family member (44%) being the most
common partners. The women were
mostly young with nearly 70% being
under 44 years of age. Over 90% were
married with most being married
over 10 years. They were fairly well
educated with over 50% holding a
university degree. Very few (34%)
had previous experience of any type
before they started their own business. Most of the women were in
manufacturing sector with most
being involved in the manufactur-