Abstract
M.Com. (Business Management)
Entrepreneurship has been identified as being critical for economic growth and lowering the unemployment rate (NDP, 2012). However, despite the efforts by government in supporting the development of entrepreneurship, the activity rates remain low, GDP is contracting and unemployment rates continue to grow. Black people and women, despite their majority status in the economy, continue to lag behind as demonstrated in their participation levels in the labour force. A lot of literature regarding entrepreneurship is based on small informal traders, which limits the information that is available that can be used to better spot the gaps in how entrepreneurs are supported to engender growth and sustainability.
The purpose of this research was to explore the development of black women owned companies who have succeeded, to assess what they attribute their success to, as well as assess the level of assistance received from government initiatives. The investments sector was chosen as it is high growth industry based on the returns offered by JSE listed companies. Black women were chosen as a focus as they were the most marginalised in the South African context.
A secondary data analysis was undertaken to determine exactly what their level of involvement was in the industry in terms of representation and identity who the entities are. The analysis found 16 Black Women Owned investment organisations involved in multiple transactions, and found that they were involved in approximately 9.6 per cent of the recorded transactions while women in general were represented in 15.8 per cent of those transactions. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were carried out with three of these entities to better understand how they navigated the early years of their businesses, and the level of involvement in government initiatives aimed at supporting SME’s.
Content analysis was utilised to analyse the data from the transcripts, based on the entrepreneurial framework as developed by Baron and Henry (2011) and applied to women entrepreneurs by Sullivan and Meek (2012). The findings were that the South African women entrepreneurs in this industry were generally pulled into the industry by opportunities that were present. They were able to assess the opportunities mainly...