Dear distinguished colleagues,
We would like to cordially invite you to consider contributing a chapter to a forthcoming book entitled "Female Entrepreneurship in Transition Economies: Waiting for Directions".
The book will be edited by:
Shqipe Gerguri-Rashiti
College of Business, American University of Middle-East, Egaila, Kuwait,
Faculty of Business and Economics, South-East European University, Republic of Macedonia
The book proposal is under review by world-wide known publisher, Palgrave Macmillan.
For many years the opinion that the entrepreneurship is male activity has predominated (Brush 1992; Berg 1997). From research conducted in 41 countries during 2003, it was found that men were almost twice as engaged in starting a new business than women, where TEA (the percentage of adults (18-64), who attempt to start a business or already are owners of small businesses set up earlier than 42 months) of females was 7.005, while that of males was 12.314 (Brush et al., 2006). However, over time, women gradually are becoming very important part in the world of entrepreneurs. According to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2004), women represent more than one-third of all people involved in entrepreneurial activity. In recent years, they have attracted increasing attention among researchers to be studies separately (Colette and Johnston 2007; Acs et al., 2005; Henry et al. 2003). There are two main motives why this 'kind' of entrepreneurs needs to be studied separately: a) women entrepreneurs have been recognised as an important untapped source of economic growth, considering that they create new jobs for themselves and others, provide different solutions to management, organisation and business problems and obstacles as well as to the exploitation of business opportunities; b) women entrepreneurs has been largely neglected both in society in general and in the social sciences, considering that mainstream research, policies and programmes tend to be "men streamed" (OECD 2004; Baker et al., 1997). With all the obstacles facing during starting and managing their businesses, today more and more women establish their own businesses. Although there is a tendency to increase women entrepreneurship, this increase would have been even greater if one can eliminate some barriers of different natures, which will enable the potential of women to come to full expression. Therefore, structural reforms should be channelled into the creation of these conditions (OECD 1998):
1) Economic. Women entrepreneurs, owners of small business create jobs for themselves and others. Private business establishment from women would allow capitalization of experience, acquired skills and obtained trainings.
2) Sociological. The establishment of private enterprises as an alternative to unemployment of women would give them the opportunity to balance work and family responsibilities, and there will also be achievement in family welfare and improvement of social cohesion. These things will be the real challenges for women entrepreneurs.
Political. Establishment of small enterprises owned by women can help in reducing the disparity between men and women, respectively it would increase women's autonomy and the opportunity to have a more active and representative role in the country's economic and political life.
The experts of OECD (2004, p.13) stated that "The scarce availability of reliable and valid data continues to be one of the key obstacles to understanding the challenges specific to women's entrepreneurship...Sex-disaggregated statistics and sex-based policy analyses have become more widespread in recent years". The same situation is in transitional economies as well. There is a lack of official data with respect to women entrepreneurs, types of businesses owned and managed by them, the contribution to the employment and gross domestic product etc. Regarding women in some transitional economies, it can be noted only that in 2011, women account for about half of the total population in Macedonia and about 44.7% of the total workforce of 940 thousand, in Serbia, the women participate in the total workforce with 41%, in Montenegro and Croatia with 45%, in Slovenia with 46%, in Albania with 38%, in Bulgaria with 47%, in Romania with 46%; in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina the participation of women in the total work force is lower, respectively 30% and 34% (Hontz and Rotanu, 2010).
The book entitled "Female Entrepreneurship in Transition Economies: Waiting for Directions", edited by Asst. Prof. Dr. Shqipe Gërguri-Rashiti treats different topics in the field of female entrepreneurship, such as: Female entrepreneurship in transition economies: theoretical background, profiles of female entrepreneurs in transitional countries, women and new business creations, determinants, motivations and constraints, perspectives on women's enterprise, growing, managing and planning the business, female entrepreneurship and economic growth, inspiring stories.
Temporary Table of Topics
· Female Entrepreneurship in Transition Economies: An Overview
· Female Entrepreneurs' motivational factors
· Innovation activities of female entrepreneurial businesses
· Financing sources of female ventures
· Female Entrepreneurs' performance
· Institutional Support for Female Entrepreneurship
· Corporate female entrepreneurship
· Social Female Entrepreneurship
· Female entrepreneurship and economic growth
· The future of female entrepreneurship in transition economies
· Inspiring stories from economies in transition
We welcome contributions that deal with these and related issues from a variety of theoretical and empirical perspectives. We particularly encourage submissions with a country-based focus. Contributions to this book may take a range of forms, may focus on different levels of analysis, and may employ both quantitative and qualitative approaches.
Submission Guidelines
· Submission Deadline: March 1, 2014. We welcome earlier submissions.
First round of review for June 1, 2014
Second round for September 1, 2014
Delivery to Palgrave: October, 2014
· Format of the citations: Harvard Reference System
Length: The book chapter should be approximately 5,000-6,000 words including any figures, tables and graphs
· No. of authors: up to 5 co-authors
· Review process: All submissions will be subject to in-depth review. Editor's requests will be communicated to authors about 4-5 weeks after full chapter manuscript is received.
Publication: Beginning of 2015.
We invite authors to email their book chapters to Shqipe Gerguri-Rashiti (gerguri.shqipe@gmail.com).