View of Limitation of Women Involvement in Business at Seremban, Negeri Sembilan

Limitation of Women Involvement in Business at Seremban, Negeri Sembilan

1,2,3_{Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies, UiTM Seremban, Malaysia} 4,5_{Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies, UiTM Raub, Malaysia}

norazira@uitm.edu.my1*

Article History: Received: 10 November 2020; Revised: 12 January 2021; Accepted: 27 January 2021; Published online: 05 April 2021

Abstract: The phenomenon of low number of women that participated in business compared to men is still becoming the matter in question in this era. Even-though the number of women entrepreneurs had increased, it still does not equivalent to men entrepreneurs. Thus, the main objective of this research is to identify the factors that limit women engagement in business. For the purpose of achieving this studies objective, a cross-sectional design through quantitative method will be used to conduct this study. While the sampling technique that used in this study is purposive sampling technique. This study involved a sample size of 278 respondents from the total population of women entrepreneurs in the area of Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. The findings of the study shown that there are positive significant relationships between all variables and in addition, it is proven that competition is the most influential factors that bring to the limitation of women in business engagement.

Keywords:Entrepreneurship, Business, Women Entrepreneurs

1. Introduction

The phenomenon of low number of women that participate in business compared to men is still becomingthematterinquestioninthisera.AccordingtoReed(2016),menhavealwaysdominated the business community and it was obvious contentions that hardly could be argued. In contrast, women had become invisible due to natural distinction of sex attitude to entrepreneurs (Mirchandani, 1999). Even though the number of women entrepreneurs had increased, it still does not equivalent to men entrepreneurs. Lack of women entrepreneurs is not a new issue and even though the number of women factors may lead to this situation such as socio-cultural opinions and discrimination factor. In Malaysia, the government offers funds to encourage women to set up business as the assistance to women entrepreneurs set up and expand their business such as, Special AssistanceSchemethroughtheSmallandMediumIndustriesDevelopmentCorporation(SMIDEC).

According to Mohd Uzir (2015) who is Department’s chief statistician in Malaysia Statistic Department, 187 264 companies were owned by women from 920 624 active establishments nationwide. This shown that the number of women involvement in business is still lower than men. Nowadays, the involvement of women in business sector as entrepreneurs is still limited. There are several efforts made to determine the factor that affects women entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, the exact factors that contributed to this problem are still in questioned.Basedontheresearch by Bruin et al (2008), there are a few uncertainties that determinants of female entrepreneurship affected from interaction of micro, intermediate and macro-level factor. In the previous statistic from Economic Census 2011, about 19.7% of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are owned by women. That percentage took nearly one in five total numbers of registered SMEs in Malaysia. This issue gives negative impacts to women as the issue might reflect wider issues of gender distinction in entrepreneurship especially in business start-up and ownership, business growth and the accumulation of wealth at the exit (Harrison & Mason,2007).

In general, previous studies observed that some of government policies focused on expanding opportunitiesofwomenentrepreneurshipstocompetewithothers;unfortunately,theeffortswerenot enough to help them thrive economically (Pandey&Amezcua, 2018). The limitations of women to engage into business probably caused by factors such as discrimination, abilities and preferences, competition as well as work-family conflicts. One of the opinion suggested in liberal feminist theory, women are disadvantaged if compared to men because of either unconcealed discrimination or logical factors that hinder their access to primary resources (Fischer, Reuber, & Dyke, 1993). In term of women’s abilities in business, even though they are not inferior than men, however they are able to developed different but equally effective attributes that may not be readily captured by logical reasoning appropriate for men (Acker, 1978). Other than that, finding from research done by Gneezy, Niederle, &Rustichini (2003), had concluded that there is remarkable increase in male performance, but not in female performance due to the fact that women may be less effective than men in competitive environment. The social- cultural status of women also recognized the primary role of women with family and household responsibility that lessen their credibility to set up business (Bruni, Gherardi, &Poggio, 2004). Thus, this research aims to identifyfactorssuchasdiscrimination,abilitiesandpreferences,competitionandwork-familyconflict

that may contribute to the limitations of women to engage intobusiness. Women in Business

Women entrepreneurship is one of the domains that will help women to build up their self-capacity and the way of determining the best choice for the family and society especially those live in rural area. According Sidal (2006), women entrepreneurs can be defined as someone who owned the business, adapt with risk and creating innovation. In other words, women entrepreneurs are those who handle the business and at the same time provide job opportunity to others (Mazumdar & Ahmed, 2015). Women entrepreneurship is one of the domains that will help women to build up their self-capacity and the way of determining the best choice for the family and society especially those live in rural area. However, instead of many initiatives taken to increase the number of women participation in entrepreneurship, women still possess the lease business than men.

In the scope of Malaysia, women engagement in business is said to be lowest in the Asia compared to Thailand and China (Global Entrepreneurship of Malaysia, 2012). In addition, according to the Department of Statistic in Malaysia (2012), small and medium enterprises contribute by the 99.9% of entrepreneurs and only 19.7% of the total (SME) belongs to women. This shows that women are immediately thinking for the further risk that might be occurs in business as the percentage of women involve is limited.

Most of the previous research data suggested that female entrepreneurs are less represented especially in developing countries. Although there are little differences on the proportion men to women, women entrepreneurs are surpassed by men entrepreneurship in around the world (Harding, 2017). This fact was also supported by evidence found in developing countries that revealed component of the investment climates such as hindrance against access to financial credit and equitable legal treatment might become deterrents to female entrepreneurs (Klapper& Parker, 2011). Though the ratio of female to male entrepreneur differ across countries, but generally it shows the same conclusion that women entrepreneurships are still minority in business environment.

Limitation of Women Involvement in Business

Discrimination, competition and work family conflict are the factors that contribute to the limitation of women to engage into business. Discrimination are the unjust act of distinguishing illegitimately among people. Normally, discrimination does not occur on the basis of individual merit, but based on the basis of prejudice or any other detestable and virtuously dishonorable standpoint (Velasquez, 2012). Discrimination is said to create drawbacks to the women entrepreneur to gain the resources at the initial phase of the business especially in term of capital and financial (Estrin&Thomasz, 2011). Women might have lower business growth intention due to weaknesses in legal environment. Social norm and differential rules and regulations under law could explicitly discriminate against women and hinder female entrepreneurship (Klapper& Parker, 2010). Given the amount of previous academic studies that observed discrimination towards women in financial access, future question arises to what degree it become barriers that affected female entrepreneurs (Pandey&Amezcua, 2018).

Female entrepreneurs also tend to have limitation on business as there is competition with male counterparts especially in term of methods in business administration risk taking behavior. In accordance to Niederle&Vesterland (2007), the differences of self-possessed and the perspective bring to the existence of competition between man and women. This means that the competition depends on how the person themselves view and react to the situation. In addition, this was supported by Ascher (2019) that pointed out the competition

between female and male

entrepreneurshipswereledbydifferencesbetweengenderespeciallyintermofmanagementstyles, organizational structure of businesses and the degree of empowerment of the entrepreneur itself. Therefore, there are probabilities that there will be differences between men and women entrepreneur in term of achievement as well as result even if they possess the samepotential.

Work-familyconflictalso one of the reason thatcontributestothelimitationfor womeninengagingintobusiness.Thistype of conflict arises from work domain and family domain as married couples usually have more than one role in the family that cause women entrepreneurs to experience unique

difficulties which limits

theirabilitiesineconomicperformanceaswellasjeopardizetheirpersonalfeelingsforachievement

andsatisfaction(Mohamad,2017). Based on Kahn et.al (1964), work-family conflict is defined as a form of internal conflict that occurs due to pressure from the responsibility towards work and family that incompatible with each other. Besides,work-familyconflictgivesanimpacttothefamilydueto several internal and external causes

which are behaviors, moods, stresses and emotions (Hamid & Amin, 2014). Additionally, women entrepreneurs operate their own businesses and undergo long working hour that generates more stress due to commitments and

obligations pressure. However,

previouslyAllenet.al(2000)arguedthatthereisconstantlynegativerelationshipbetween worktask and family task with three kind of result which are work-linked, non-work- linked andstress-linked. Thus, in order to this conflict, both family and work should be considered and fairly balanced.

2. Research Methodology

For the purpose of achieving this study’s objectives, a cross-sectional design through quantitative method will be used to conduct this study. Furthermore, quantitative research method will be used which relies on the data from a predominant survey involving female entrepreneurs in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan.

Thetotalpopulationofthestudyarethosewhoregisteredwomenentrepreneursandgainassistance fromMajlisAmanahRakyat(MARA)andothersinstitution.Thecurrenttotalregisteredpopulationof

womenentrepreneurswith(MARA)inNegeriSembilanis2,493persons.However,thisstudywillonly involve 1,027 women entrepreneurs in the area of Seremban. Besides, this study will follow the proposed sample size table by Krejcie and Morgan (1970) which is 278respondents.

Thesamplingtechniquethatusedinthisstudyishomogenouspurposivesamplingtechniqueasthe total population is already known. Homogenous sampling technique refers to the selected sample with the same characteristics. The data will be obtained and gathered through the dissemination a set of questionnaire. Hence, the questionnaires will be disseminated to the registered women entrepreneurs in Seremban areaonly.

The objectives of this study is to determines the limitations of women in business engagement (discrimination, competition and work-family conflict) at Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. In order to obtain the response from respondents, a set of questionnaire related to variables was distributed and involve of five sections:

Section A: Respondents Background

Section B: Women Engagement into Business Section C: Discrimination

Section D: Competition

Section E: Work-family conflict Women Engagement in Business

Women engagement in business has been limit by several determinants. The measurement used is to determine whether the women engagement in business has influences by the determinants which are discrimination, competition and work-family conflict. The modification has been made to the questions so that it can be applied for the determinants of work-family conflict. The Likert scale used with the measurement (5-Strongly Agree, 4- Agree, 3- Neutral, 2- Disagree and 1- (5-Strongly Disagree).

Table 1.Women Engagement in Business

1 I have personally known as entrepreneur in the last three years 2 There are good start-up opportunities in my area

3 Fear of failure would prevent me from starting a business 4 Entrepreneurship is a good career choice for me

5 I decided independently to set-up a business 6 I aim to enlarge my business

*All the item was measured by five point Likert Scale,1= strongly disagree and 5= strongly agree. Discrimination

Discrimination is the unjust act of distinguishing illegitimately among people. Normally, discrimination does not occur on the basis of individual merit, but based on the basis of prejudice or any other detestable and virtuously dishonourable standpoint (Velasquez, 2012). The measurement is to know the relationship between discrimination and the women engagement in business. The modification has been made to the questions so that

it can be applied for the determinants of sex discrimination in entrepreneurship. The Likert scale will be use with the measurement (5-Strongly Agree, 4- Agree, 3- Neutral, 2- Disagree and 1- Strongly Disagree).

Table 2.Discriminations for Women Involved in Business 1 I was told that I could not succeed in business 2 I was not taken seriously at early start-up phase

3 My husband become the guarantor for my loan agreement 4 My father co-signed the loan agreement for me

5 I have difficulty to obtain financial credit from bank

6 High credit interest and collateral required for me to apply loan

*All the item was measured by five point Likert Scale,1= strongly disagree and 5= strongly agree Competition

In accordance to Niederle&Vesterland (2007), the differences of self-possessed and the perspective bring to the existence of competition between man and women. The measurement used is to determine the relationship between competition and women engagement in business. The modification has been made to the questions so that it can be applied for the determinants of work-family conflict. The Likert scale will be used with the measurement (5-Strongly Agree, 4- Agree, 3- Neutral, 2- Disagree and 1- Strongly Disagree).

Table 3. Competition for the Women Involved in Business

1 I have no issue to work with men in Information Technology (IT) 2 I prefer to learn from the experience before starting the business 3 I do not like taking risk in business environment

4 I prefer quality over quantity in business

5 I possess good knowledge and understanding in managing a business 6 I am able to adapt with male counterpart in business environment

*All the item was measured by five point Likert Scale,1= strongly disagree and 5= strongly agree. Work-Family Conflict

Based on Kahn et.al (1964), work-family conflict is defined as a form of internal conflict that occurs due to pressure from the responsibility towards work and family that incompatible with each other. The measurement used is to determine the relationship between work-family conflict and women engagement in business. The modification has been made to the questions so that it can be applied for the determinants of work-family conflict. The Likert scale will be use with the measurement (5-Strongly Agree, 4- Agree, 3- Neutral, 2- Disagree and 1- Strongly Disagree).

Table 4.Work-Family Conflict for the Women Engagement in Business 1 I am being interfere with my home life due to the demand on work. 2 I am being interfere with my work due to the home life responsibilities 3 My job produces strain that makes it difficult to fulfil family duties

4 I have to make changes to my plans for family activities, due to work-related duties 5 I often bring my children to workplace

6 Work life balance is more important to me than profit

3. Findings andDiscussion

Table 5.Personal and Background of WomenEntrepreneur

Characteristics Frequency (N) Percent (%)

18-20 years old 3 1.3

21-25 years old 39 17.4

26-30 years old 28 12.5

Age 31-35 years old 33 14.7

36-40 years old 33 14.7

41-45 years old 35 15.6

46-50 years old 33 14.7

51 years old and above 20 8.9

Malays 127 56.7

Race Chinese 45 20.1

Indians 42 18.8

Others 10 4.5

Single 31 13.8

Marital Status Married 146 65.2

Divorce 42 18.8

Others 5 2.2

SPM 76 33.9

Highest Education Diploma 58 25.9

Degree 48 21.4

Others 42 18.8

Food and Beverages

83 37.1

Type of Business Owned Apparels 39 17.4

Handy Crafts 20 8.9

Beauty Skincare 33 14.7

Services 49 21.9

Participation in

Governmental Programme Yes 101 45.1

No 123 54.9

The demographic of the respondents are the women from the starting age of 18 until 51 years and above.Inthisstudy,womeninbetweenageof21until25yearsoldhasthehighestfrequencyof29. Throughout the study, least number of women in the age of 18 until 20 years involve in entrepreneurshipintheareaofSerembanwherethefrequencyis3.Therespondentsarethosefrom the various races which are Malays, Chinese, Indians and others. However, Malays population contributedthemostinthestudywiththefrequencyof127outofthe221.OthersracessuchasIban, Kadazandusun, Sikh are referred as ‘Others’ in the survey made up of 10 in the frequency of the survey.

In addition, among 224 women entrepreneurs, 146 respondents are married women. Referring to Table4.3,marriedwomenarethehighestamongwomenentrepreneurs.Option‘Others’isforthose

whoareinrelationshipsuchasengagedandbutneithermarriednordivorce.Moreover,33.9percent of women entrepreneurs in the area of Seremban possessed SPM as their highest educations. The secondhighesteducationallevelisthosewhohaveDiploma(25.9percent)followedbyDegreewith 21.4 percent. The least about 18.8 percent is for those who might be qualified from STPM or skill’s certification which considered

as other qualifications.

Womenentrepreneurscontributetovarioustypeofbusinessinthemarket.Basedonthetableabove, foodandbeveragesisthemostfavoritetypeofbusinessforwomenentrepreneurinSerembanwith

37.1percent.Thereareonly8percentofwomenentrepreneurcontributedtotypeofbusinessknown asHandyCrafts.Thefrequencyofentrepreneursthatdoesnotinvolvedingovernmentalprogramme

exceedsthefrequencyofthosewhotookpartinanygovernmentalprogrammes.Amongthewomen entrepreneurs 54.9 percent has not involved in any governmental programme. While, only 45.1 percent of the entrepreneurs participated in governmentalprogramme.

Table 6.Objective 1 - Discrimination and Women Engagement in Business Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate Change Statistics R Square

Change F Change df1 df2 Sig. F Change 1

.249a .062 .058 .43671 .062 14.513 1 219 .000 a. Predictors: (Constant), Discrimination new

Coefficientsa

Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients

t Sig.

Model B Std. Error Beta

1 (Constant) 3.734 .139 26.901 .000

Discrimination new

.158 .042 .249 3.810 .000 a. Dependent Variable: Women engagement in business

There is significant relationship between discrimination and women engagement in businessF(1,219) = 14.513, p< 0.000, R2= 0.062. Based on the table 6, result shows that the discrimination influenced women engagement in business by 62%. Based on research that studied the relationship between gender and entrepreneurship, it is confirmed that there are social and institutional gender as drawback for women in entrepreneurial and business context (Mota-Ribeiro, 2017). This research is in consistence with previous research by GEM (2013) which studied gender barriers related to financial and institutional support.

Table 7.Objective 2 - Competition and Women Engagement in Business Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate Change Statistics R Square Change F Change df1 df2 Sig. F Change 1 .400a .160 .157 .41322 .160 41.819 1 219 .000

a. Predictors: (Constant), Competition new Coefficients

Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized

Coefficients

t Sig.

Model B Std. Error Beta

1 (Constant) 2.452 .280 8.774 .000

Competition new .423 .065 .400 6.467 .000

a. Dependent Variable: Women engagement in business

p< 0.000, R2= 0.0160. Based on the table 7, result show that the competition influenced women engagement in business by 16%. As stated by the previous research, the differences between men and women is measures by how much the opportunities that they gain at one time (DeTianne& Chandler, 2007). Researcher found that men are easily identifies their opportunity compared to women. As for women, they are likely to use the experience that they had to start the business. In contrast, men preferred to further make investmentandbeginwiththebusinessandmeetthedemands.Thisshowsthatmenaremorelikely to expose into risk as compared to women. However, as women are lack of financial resources, this has limits their chances to compete with men in business sector (Minniti M.,2009).

Table 8.Objective 3 - Work-Family Conflict and Women Engagement in Business Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate Change Statistics R Square Change F Change df1 df2 Sig. F Change 1 .162a .026 .022 .44497 .026 5.924 1 219 .016

a. Predictors: (Constant), Work family conflict new Coefficients

Unstandardized Coefficients Standardize d

Coefficients

t Sig.

Model B Std. Error Beta

1 (Constant) 3.884 .154 25.287 .000

Work family

conflict new .109 .045 .162 2.434 .016

a. Dependent Variable: Women engagement in business

There is significant relationship between work-family conflict and women engagement in business F(1, 219) = 5.924, p< 0.016, R2= 0.026. Basedonthetable 8,the result showthatthework-familyconflictinfluencedwomenengagement in business by 26%. According to thepast research,byJenningsandMcDough(2007),womenentrepreneursareexperiencemorework-family conflict compared to men. There are three major dimensions that believed to be faced by the entrepreneurs in their business environment. This included role conflict; role ambiguity and role overloadwhichcreaterole-relatedstressthatcouldleadtowork-familyconflict(Teoh,Chong,Chong, & Ismail, 2016). This is in consistent with the study conducted by Hussain (2013), about 70 percent of entrepreneurs concurred that operating their ownbusiness.

Table 9.Objective 4 - The Most Limitation Factor

Women engagement in business

Competition new Pearson Correlation .249** Sig. (2-tailed) .000

N 221

Correlationanalysisisconductedtoestablishtherelationshipsamongthevariables.Fromtheresult based on table 9, there are relationship between discrimination and women engagement in business (r= 0.249, p= 0.000). This results shows that discrimination is the strongest among the independentvariables. Based on past researches had observed that women have lack of willingness or shy away from competition more often compared to men and it is possible that this reason had contributed to differences in their career advancements (Balafoutas, Fornwagner, & Sutter, 2018). If women entrepreneurs unable to compete along with other male entrepreneurs, it is almost

impossible to mitigateorevenoffsetthegenderdifferencesthatmayleadtowomenlimitationinentrepreneurship. 4. Conclusion

Overall, even though there are increasing numbers of women involved in business, the number of women entrepreneurs is still lacking and does not equivalent to men entrepreneurs. The study proposed that the limitations of women to engage into business probably caused by factors such as discrimination, abilities and preferences, competition as well as work-family conflicts. The findings of this study will redound to the women involvement in entrepreneurship considering that everyone should have equal opportunity to start business. Previously, women are being discriminated in term of access to capital and market entrance, thus the study is importance to ensure those women entrepreneurs’ rights in financial markets and resources are not being denied. Moreover, by giving the opportunities to the women, they will have the chances to explored themselves and show their own abilities also create their own money. Furthermore, instead of improve the standard of living of women that involved in business, the study is important in identifying the relationship between work and family affairs towards women. This is because both part either work or family affairs will generate such various emotion to the women and later it might bring conflict to them.

Therefore, by having this study it may help the society to understand women’s commitment in both work and households. Indirectly, the credibility of women in managing work-family affairs will not be doubt. Next, the importance of this study is to bring government for a better achievement in term of revenue. The higher involvement of women in entrepreneur will attract more foreign investor to invest into the country. Thus, the flow of money from investment will lead to the country’s revenue. In addition, the study is to encourage more budgets allocated by the government for the new starter in entrepreneurship with the easiest way especially women.

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