Determinants of Entrepreneurial Orientation of Rural Women Small Business Owners: The Case of Gambella Region of Ethiopia

Small business and entrepreneurship play critical role in stimulating economic activity, creating jobs, alleviating poverty and uplift living standards in Africa. It is widely accepted that the Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE) sectors have the potential to provide a livelihood for a considerably large number of poor rural and urban women in Ethiopia. Women account for the larger share of the informal economy operators as well as those running micro and small enterprises in Ethiopia. The target population of the study is the women engaged in micro and small business in Gambella District in Western Ethiopia. Probability Proportional to Size sampling and simple random sampling technique was adopted to draw 100 individual sample business women from each village. The key motivating factor for women to be involved in a business is to be independent from depending so much on their spouse. From the result of the study, many women unaware of credit sources and other business support services. The overall implication of this study is that since women business operators appear to be playing a major role in the economy of the country, besides up-lifting the lives of their families, especial effort is needed to develop entrepreneurship. Hence, appropriate and sustained interventions targeted to the women enterprise operators need to be developed and implemented. The women business owners themselves will be expected to more specifically identify the area of critical support and be involved in the development of suitable program.