Women entrepreneurship in marginalized communities: Does culture, Ubuntu, religiosity and ancestral relevance matter?

ABSTRACT

Poverty alleviation at the bottom of the pyramid hitches, inter alia, on rural women entrepreneurship in emerging and marginalized economies. The study was focused on understanding the influence of cultural orientations (vertical individualism and horizontal collectivism) and peculiar African beliefs (social axioms) of Ubuntu, ancestral relevance and religiosity on rural women’s entrepreneurial intentions. Data was collected from 200 rural women in Zimbabwe. Analysis of data was done using structural equation modeling in Amos. Results revealed significant relationships between cultural orientations and African beliefs, as well as between Ubuntu and entrepreneurial intention. However, religiosity and ancestral relevance were not significantly related to entrepreneurial intention. In promoting rural women entrepreneurship, Governments, Non-Governmental organizations and financial institutions may include culture orientations and Ubuntu in their training manuals and also in screening potential entrepreneurs on loan applications.

KEYWORDS:

• Women entrepreneurship
• culture
• vertical individualism
• Ubuntu
• religiosity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15575330.2024.2344206

Additional information

Funding

There was no funding for this study.