Entrepreneurship and women’s economic empowerment in Zimbabwe: Research themes and future research perspectives

Abstract

This article explores women’s entrepreneurship research conducted in Zimbabwe. For this purpose, a literature review approach was adopted where all journal articles published between 1990 and 2018 that addressed the issues of women entrepreneurship in Zimbabwe were searched and analysed. The articles were searched on Google Scholar using the following keywords: women entrepreneurs, women small business owners, women in informal sector and Zimbabwe. In total, 11 articles were retrieved, indicating a dearth of research studies on women entrepreneurship, particularly from the formal sector perspective, giving a glimpse of the entrepreneurship landscape in Zimbabwe. The content analysis of the selected articles resulted in the identification of eight themes: (1) feminism perspective, (2) informal sector trading, (3) motivations for entrepreneurship, (4) entrepreneurship characteristics, (5) obstacles in entrepreneurship, (6) socio-cultural challenges, (7) cross-border trading and (8) coping strategies within the context of women entrepreneurship in Zimbabwe. Discussions on these themes were situated within the broader literature and trends on existing women entrepreneurship literature. The study has implications at a practical and theoretical level. Supporting women entrepreneurship has positive effects on poverty reduction in agreement with the Sustainable Development Goals, and this study suggests women’s empowerment to operate at higher echelons of the business sector with bespoke support mechanism that fosters sustainable development. Also, the study proposed suggestions for future research on women entrepreneurship in Zimbabwe and other African countries.