Ugandan women’s approaches to doing business and becoming entrepreneurs

Soledad Vieitez-Cerdeño, Roser Manzanera-Ruiz and Olga Margret M. M. Namasembe

Third World Quarterly, 2023, vol. 44, issue 7, 1435-1454

Abstract: Uganda ranks first in female entrepreneurship in Africa, and Kampala is one of the country’s most important urban/commercial hubs. The markets of Kalerwe, Mulagoo-Nsooba, Nakasero, Ntinda and Seguku constitute the research setting. Important trading centres, these markets are also relevant social spaces for locals to interact with each other. This research addresses Ugandan women’s approaches to doing business and being entrepreneurs, offering a typology: business owner, survival entrepreneur, opportunity entrepreneur and transitional entrepreneur. Based on a qualitative methodology, 16 female entrepreneurs were interviewed during fieldwork (2019–2021). Data were collected through open-ended interviews, and a thematic analysis followed. By addressing female businesses from a postcolonial African perspective, the connections between culture and entrepreneurship are made explicit in understanding women’s entrepreneurship, thus filling a gap in the existing literature which has mostly focussed on the informal/popular economies (as safe haven for victims of neoliberalism) or the African economic creativity (as panacea for development). Whether driven by necessity or opportunity, the results show that Ugandan women’s entrepreneurial initiatives are grounded in cultural and social values that overcome the structural constraints they face.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01436597.2023.2189580 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:44:y:2023:i:7:p:1435-1454

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ctwq20

DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2023.2189580

Access Statistics for this article

Third World Quarterly is currently edited by Shahid Qadir

More articles in Third World Quarterly from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().