Female Entrepreneurship in East and South-East Asia

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Evolution of the concept of female entrepreneurship and the reality of women-owned businesses

Introduction

Conformity to institutional pressures may be difficult to overcome when social norms and practices are so deeply engrained in the social fabric that they appear to be obvious and ‘natural’. So there is a critical question of whether, and if so how and to what extent, the perception of what is and should be women’s entrepreneurship and the different components of its context are amenable to changes over time. Before turning again to the four Asian countries, it is useful to explain how the situation evolved in Western countries in this respect. Then a comparison can be made based on similarities and points of convergence, but also on ...