Business Commons^™

Exploring The Benefit Of Introducing Accounting And Finance Knowledge For Micro And Small Entrepreneurs During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Nurul Hidayah, Lucky Nugroho, Harry Suharman, Anees Janee Ali

ASEAN Journal of Community Engagement

This study aims to explore the benefit of introducing the accounting and finance knowledge for micro and small business enterprises, in particular during the time of the coronavirus disease 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected the micro and small enterprises. A large number of industries faced the risk of lower sales, which in turn badly hit their businesses. To assist micro and small business entrepreneurs in maintaining sustainability by improving their bookkeeping skills by using digital applications, a team of lecturers from Universitas Mercu Buana, Indonesia, and Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia, collaborated on socialization activities and interactions. The lecturers …

Status Consumption And Charitable Donations: The Power Of Empowerment, Sona Klucarova, Xin He

Marketing & Entrepreneurship Faculty Publications

Status consumption, the act of consuming market offerings aimed at conferring status on the consumer, has often been portrayed as the opposite of charitable donation behavior. In a departure from prior works, this study examines the connection between these two seemingly contradictory behaviors. The results of seven studies (including one in the Supporting Information Appendix) demonstrate that status consumption, considered a self-centered behavior, leads to increased charitable donations, a prosocial outcome. This effect is driven by a process of empowerment (i.e., increase in the sense of power that consumers derive from status consumption). The underlying mechanism of empowerment is examined …

Evaluation Of Self-Help Groups In Promoting Women Socio-Economic Empowerment In Kibra Sub-County, Nairobi County, Kenya, Philip Onyango Were, Sarah Wairimu Kimaru-Muchai

Journal of Global Awareness

Women play a crucial role in developing the economy, but their contribution has been negatively affected by limited financial services access. The study investigated the role of self-help groups (SHGs) in promoting women's economic empowerment in Kibra, Nairobi County, Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The sample size was 108 SHGs as respondents. The study utilized primary means of data collection by using questionnaires, key informant interviews (KIIs) and focused group discussions (FGDs). The findings showed that SHGs utilize group savings to expand credit access to vulnerable women in the sub-county. Leadership experience in SGHs has changed …

Evaluating Microfinance And The Potential To Economically Empower Women In The Sacred Valley Of Peru, Allison Mcnamara

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

In the past 30 years, microfinance loans have become a highly popular strategy to reduce poverty and economically empower people in developing countries. Women in particular have become the primary recipients of microfinance loans. However, recent studies show that the loans only have short-term benefits, and ultimately contribute to the indebtedness of the Global South. This paper studies the effectiveness of microfinance loans in the Sacred Valley of Peru (Cusco), and their ability, or lack thereof, to economically empower women in this region.

Women Leaders In Social Entrepreneurship: Leadership Perception, And Barriers, Almas Aldawood

Educational and Organizational Learning and Leadership Dissertations

Social entrepreneurship increases women’s social inclusion and empowerment by providing self-employment opportunities (Datta & Gailey, 2012). There is growing attention, locally and globally, to social entrepreneurship from economic, social, environmental, and industrial lenses (Cornforth, 2014.) Grounded by feminist and empowerment theories, this phenomenological case study investigated the perceptions of women social entrepreneurs about leadership. In addition, the study explored the barriers to effective leadership in social entrepreneurship.

A total of five participants participated in this study. The participants were five women leaders in social enterprise with experience in the field ranged from 3-40 years. Data was collected through multiple avenues …

Empowering Female Entrepreneurs Through Mentorship In Medellin, Colombia: Results From The Field, Theresa Solenski

Master's Theses

Utilizing the power of local knowledge and peer networking, this study attempts to quantify the impacts of mentorship among female micro-entrepreneurs in Medellin, Colombia on empowerment. Developing countries such as Colombia have disproportionately high rates of unprofitable micro-businesses, many of which are managed by women. Internal constraints, such as disempowerment, play a central role in perpetuating poverty. We implement a 6-month mentoring intervention by pairing 18 successful entrepreneurs with 52 disadvantaged female, micro-entrepreneurs in Medellin, Colombia to measure the additional benefit of localized knowledge to micro-borrowers. Using a process of random assignment, I measure the change in female empowerment, measured …

Entrepreneurship Education Empowers Youth To Change Their Lives, Marianna Brashear, Jason Riddle

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) aims at equipping Title 1 schools with free, hands-on, engaging materials that any teacher can facilitate either individually or in a classroom setting with no background in entrepreneurship necessary. These versatile lessons, courses, and workshops teach the entrepreneurial mindset optimizing opportunities for grades 8-12 students no matter which life/career path they choose.

Microfinance: Combating World Poverty One Small Business At A Time, Alison Basney

Senior Honors Theses

Poverty is a major problem that reaches millions of people around the world. Although many organizations and individuals work daily to combat this, much of the work done to reduce poverty lacks sustainability and serves only to remedy to the effects of poverty, rather than create a solution to the causes of poverty. Microfinance can be very basically defined as the provision of banking to the impoverished who would not otherwise have access to these services. This purpose of this thesis is to show that microfinance is the ideal solution to the poverty problem by using research and evidence from …

The Clash Of Missions: Juxtaposing Competing Pressures In South Africa's Social Enterprises, Emmanuel T. Kodzi

Faculty Publications

Social enterprises seek critical resources to fulfill their mission in a defined domain of action. However, this quest also constitutes a distraction that complicates the operations of any social enterprise. By analyzing the logic of control versus the logic of empowerment for operating scenarios in South Africa, we examine the process trade-offs that enhance or limit social impact. Our findings prioritize efficiency in resolving process trade-offs, since the focus on value creation diminishes the replenishment cycle for value capture. We propose that value chain processes be controlled to the extent that the enterprise acts as a custodian of community empowerment …

Women As Leaders In Differing Microfinance Models, Rae M. Randleman

Journal of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought

One of the original microfinance institutions (MFIs) is Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and the founder of the bank is Muhammad Yunus (2007). Yunus (2007) initiated a discourse that stated that microloans granted to women resulted in, among other things, increased female empowerment. Much of the global microfinance industry (MFI) has mimicked Yunus’ focus on women and thus created a global master narrative which stated that the capitalist system of credit provided to marginalized women can alleviate poverty and empower women. Other development organizations contend that by itself microfinance cannot empower women; empowerment also requires long-term efforts to influence change in …