Woman’s entrepreneurship – female participation in loss-making SMEs

Abstract

The paper explores the ownership structure of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which fell into a debt crisis due to business failures, in order to indicate the differences between male and female entrepreneurs. We conducted the empirical research on a sample of 186 small and medium-sized loss-making enterprises in the Republic of Serbia. The results obtained by descriptive statistical analysis of the observed sampleshow that the participation of female companies among loss-making enterprises is considerably low. The ratio of companies owned by women and those owned by men was 18.8%: 81.2%. Furthermore, we have recorded a significant difference in the amounts of debt, indicating that female companies have significantly lower debt rates when compared to those owned by men. The findings of this research can be applied as a strategic framework for policymakers to encourage female entrepreneurship.

Keywords

• smes
• owners
• female entrepreneurs
• loss-making enterprises
• capital