This study focuses on women entrepreneurship and poverty alleviation. It explores the socio-cultural and economic context in which Igbo women’s basket weaving enterprise develops and operates in Nigeria and their beliefs about how entrepreneurial action can alleviate poverty.
We conducted a qualitative study of 48 Igbo women entrepreneurs who run local basket weaving enterprise in 16 rural communities of 4 out of the 5 Igbo States (southeast region) of Nigeria, to explore the impact of informal entrepreneurial learning, socio-cultural and economic issues, individual values in business start-ups and development in the cities after post-primary education in an attempt to alleviate poverty in line with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 1).
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Focusing on three dominant themes (including socio-cultural and economic issues of the Igbo women basket weaving entrepreneurs, etcetera) from the thematic analysis, we analyze the factors that contribute to understanding the socio-cultural context of the Igbo women’s basket weaving enterprise in Nigeria.
Findings provide a framework of the Igbo women entrepreneurs’ poverty alleviation and show evidence of a perspective of entrepreneurship for poverty alleviation that is different from the mainstream entrepreneurship literature on poverty alleviation.
Also, the Igbo women entrepreneurs are embedded in communities, which are shaped by (a) institutional voids and underdeveloped market that promotes creativity among commu-nity members, (b) food and income insecurity forces interaction, ideas, informal entrepreneurial learning among the community members, (c) disadvantaged in resources, which forces the community members to rely on the available resources for their survival enterprises.
For full access to the full paper, please use this link https://doi.org/10.1080/15228916.2021.1874781
Cite this paper as:
Okolie, U. C., Ehiobuche, C., Igwe, P. A., Agha-Okoro, M. A., & Onwe, C. C. (2021). Women Entrepreneurship and Poverty Alleviation: Understanding the Economic and Socio-cultural Context of the Igbo Women’s Basket Weaving Enterprise in Nigeria. Journal of African Business. https://doi.org/10.1080/15228916.2021.1874781
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