Study: Women-run SMEs hounded by growth issues

CEBU, Philippines - Akin to other small-scale businesses, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) owned by women in developing economies are found to be hounded with issues on finance, networks and technology, a recent study revealed.

This was found out in a research study of women-owned SMEs in developing countries in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) as conducted by the Asia Foundation.

The survey evaluated business environments in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The study also found employee hiring and training, government support, corruption and social support affecting women's access to trade and growth.

There were 92 respondents in Malaysia, 80 SMEs in Thailand, 108 respondents in Indonesia and 100 SMEs in the Philippines who responded to the survey, all of which were equally categorized as females or males.

The research was designed to capture important trends in SMEs run by women and men on an equal basis.

Katherine Loh, program fellow at The Asia Foundation, said that there were no statistically significant differences between men and women's firms in the study countries particularly terms of age, size, status and firm sector.

She, however, noted that the study identified unique challenges faced by women who operate SMEs apart from the simple firm level factors.

She cited that women-owned SMEs have difficulty in dealing with the complexity of loan application process especially to women exporters.

While networks are recognized as significant contributor to success in the business, women who own firms lag in formal networking.

"Women-owned firms that interacted with associations at least sometimes were on average 38 percent larger than those that did not, compared to 25 percent larger for men," she said.

Loh added that women firm owners also generally lag behind men in their knowledge and use of technology.

Business owners from both genders also cited employee hiring and training as their primary business challenge particularly for women exporters in the Philippines and female entrepreneurs in Indonesia.

She said that women owners are found to hire 17 percent more women employees than male entrepreneurs.

While majority of male and female respondents perceived relatively high levels of government support, women business owners in Malaysia and Thailand said otherwise.

"In Malaysia, women owners were 18% less likely than men owners to say that government was supportive of business. In Thailand, women owners were 21% less likely than men owners to think that government was accessible," Loh said.

In terms of social support, the survey showed that women exporters across all economies are much less likely to be married than men exporters. It was found out that rates of marriage and firm size showed a correlation.

Findings of the survey also indicated informal payments as a setback among all business owners specifically in the Philippines. It further confirmed that women were not necessarily perceived to be more vulnerable to corruption than men across all economies. /JMD (FREEMAN)