Female entrepreneurs performance : a systematic literature review of forces influencing the performance of African female entrepreneurs

Abstract

The role of entrepreneurship has been known for many decades as the most important factor contributing to the economic development. Most studies, regarding female or gender difference in SMEs performance have mainly emerged from developed countries: while in other developing parts of the world such as Africa; there is still a huge gap in the entrepreneurship performance of men and women in social, cultural and economic activities. However, research on female entrepreneurship across Africa is crucial to the creation of knowledge base on literatures with regards to the common forces influencing the performance of female entrepreneur’s. This study has been conducted using the systematic literature review methodology with a critical reviews and analysis of both theoretical and empirical findings of about 68 articles. This study analyzed and reviewed common factors influencing the performance of Female Entrepreneurs across Five (5) African Countries in east, west and southern Africa: particularly with countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Botswana and Ethiopia. The result of this study shows that these factors are mainly associated with social structural problems. For examples cultures and values affecting female entrepreneurs in most African countries are almost the same with each theme of factors recurring at each specific country region. However, from the variation of results of these factors shows that religion/cultures, family responsibilities, education/ experience and technology may influence the performance of some group of female entrepreneurs in some country’s context.