The number of women entering small business ownership has increased significantly across the world. These women make a crucial contribution to the economic growth and development of local, national and global economies. Yet, despite their increasing numbers, they have received little attention from the academic community and research into the experiences of women small business owners is confined to a handful of countries. The work on women entrepreneurs is far more extensive and generally eclipses the area of small business ownership. In entrepreneurial research, the emphasis has tended to be on the experiences of women originally from senior corporate management backgrounds, whereas small business research encompasses women from.
