Research Article: 2018 Vol: 24 Issue: 3
Margaretha Ardhanari, Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya
Gratianus Edwi Nugrohadi, Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya
Adriana Anteng Anggorowati, Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya
Women, Micro-Entrepreneur, Holistic-Integrative.
A coastal area, a transitional area between land and sea, is a potential resource in Indonesia. Surabaya is one of the cities that have potential coastal areas. The development of community living in coastal areas, which are the strategic sectors for economic development, needs to be fully optimized to its potential remembering that the real marines are yet to be fully utilized to improve the welfare of fishers or coastal community. This resulted in less optimal utilization of marine fishery potential which should be a source of local revenue and significant foreign exchange earner for the country (Astuti, 2012).
The most significant fisheries potential coastal areas in Surabaya can be found in these nine districts: Gunung Anyar, Rungkut, Mulyorejo, Bulak, Asemrowo, Benowo, Krembangan, Kenjeran, and Sukolilo. Fishers in Surabaya are dominated by traditional fishermen and their fleets, such as boats, outboard motors, and bass boats. Subdistrict Bulak has considerable potential for its marine resources because most of the people living there are fishermen. To fulfill their living needs, people market their fresh or partially processed fish (processed food). Some examples of such processed fishery products are smoked fish, dried fish, fish skin crackers, shredded fish, and many others. Fishermen's wives usually run these enterprises to increase the value of selling of their husbands' catches. The fishery enterprises in this place are still generally considered as a large-scale household.
Tambunan (2012) conducted a research on women's role in the development of small enterprises. The result shows that the reasons why women opened their own business were neither driven by their personal desire to build their own business nor to develop expertise in one field area nor to be independent as individuals. They were forced by the economic pressure. They become entrepreneurs because they need "to fulfill their basic needs". Also, it is due to the limited opportunities for employment as well as the need to increase their families' income while at the same time carrying out their roles in managing the household. Women have more demanded soft-skills, such as perseverance, meticulous, hardworking, patient, honest, robust, high sense of responsibility, strong willingness, and high spirits.
Studies on the model of the women empowerment which focus on women as fishers have been carried out by Handoko et al. (2012). They found that the stages of constructing the model of women empowerment as fishers in terms of fulfilling family needs are based on the following issues: (1) the inconsistency of family's income, (2) the difficulty of developing alternative enterprises to the family's income, such as stores or stalls, (3) the difficulty to get access to venture capital provided by banks as well as dependence on moneylenders, (4) the nature of female fishers who have a stubborn character and are pampered by natural resources in the society, (5) the root of fisherman culture whose female fishermen are seen as part of society, (6) the habit of gambling which is difficult to overcome, and (7) the longing of the presence of a capable leader as a role model.
The UNDP report (2014) on the Human Development entitled Maintaining Human Advancement: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience found that in terms of its performance compared to countries conserving their citizens' welfare by using the Human Development Index (HDI), a combination of indicators such as health, wealth, and education, Indonesia was still in its unchanged 108 positions since 187 years ago, with the exception of Singapore (9), Brunei (30), Malaysia (62) and Thailand (89), member countries of ASEAN ranks more low to Myanmar (150), Laos (139), Cambodia (136), Vietnam (121) and the Philippines (117).
Ardhanari (2007) investigated the personal factors of women micro-entrepreneurs in the successful development of retail business influenced by cultural factors in Surabaya. Findings from her research indicated that the patriarchal culture was still dominating various life aspects of women micro-entrepreneurs. Consequently, it hindered the efforts of the realizations of the enterprises' development and success. The obstacles encountered by women-micro entrepreneurs might exist from within the individuals or family. These conditions undoubtedly gave impacts on their efforts in developing and succeeding their retail enterprises.
Research conducted by Koesworo & Ardhanari (2009) on the capability of women micro-entrepreneurs in managing risk showed that women were aware of the risks of the rapid growth of enterprises and that women preferred to develop their enterprises gradually. Moreover, the women's ability to build an access to micro-finance institutions proved that they were very cautious in running their business because of their ability to access formal financial institutions were still insufficient. This finding is also reinforced by the findings from Ardhanari (2014) who found that women micro-entrepreneurs had a very high sense of discipline in repayment of loans. In fact, a symbiotic mutualism is formed between microfinance institutions and women entrepreneurs. It was reflected when women micro-entrepreneurs needed capital from the institutions to expand their enterprise, whereas the respective institutions required women micro-entrepreneurs to improve their institution's performance.
However, discipline is also reinforced by other psychological factors. Nugrohadi (2014) conducted research concerning the description of the protection and risk factors, resilience and psychological welfare of women. He found that the fisherman's wives serving as the subjects of the research were resilient. It was marked by the identifications of optimism, self-efficacy, impulse control, and transformative behavior. Resilience is manifested by a variety of factors: the protection or the risk factor, from inside the individuals or outside of the individuals.
Based on the researches which were carried out on Micro-enterprises run by women as well as the unique characteristics of coastal communities; thus, holistic and integrative studies are needed in order to create economic independence of women micro-entrepreneurs. All the efforts to build an economic independence with holistic and integrative models are in line with government policies and programs. According to World Bank Indonesia (2016), much of the policy framework concerning enterprise support in Indonesia is centered around microenterprises and small enterprises. Law number 20/2008 on MSMEs provides the official classification of MSMEs and defines each category of firm according to asset and sales or annual revenues. In turn, support programs for MSMEs tend to segment the market mainly regarding business size, as measured by sales and annual revenues.
In addition to the provision of the legislation, through The State Minister for Women Empowerment and Child Protection, the Indonesia government also launched the “Three Ends” priority program. One of the goals of the “Three Ends” program is to end the problems faced by women in their economic behavior, namely the inequity of economic access. Since 2016, to achieve the goal of ending the inequity of economic access to women, The State Minister for Women Empowerment and Child Protection conducted Women's Economic Empowerment Activities through the development of home industrial actors. All the efforts are further strengthened by the regulation of The State Minister for Women Empowerment and Child Protection, number 2/2016 on General Guidelines for the Development of Home Industries to Improve Family Welfare through Women Empowerment.
Building economic independence of women micro-entrepreneurs can be done individually or collectively by using a strategy, which is to build enterprises by strengthening the institution, capital, and information networks. Psychologically, when faced with difficult circumstances, women micro-entrepreneurs should care for themselves, avoid any form of dependency on others, make a decision independently, and have strong perseverance and persistence. Remembering that welfare improvement is not only a single matter of economy, but also psychology, women should apply this strategy to make a rapid development which centralizes on a human.
Woman-Micro Entrepreneurs
“An entrepreneur is one who creates a new business in the face of risk and uncertainty for the purpose of achieving pro it and growth by identifying opportunities and assembling the necessary resources to capitalize on those opportunities” Zimmerer et al. (2008). The definition emphasizes that entrepreneurs are people who see opportunities and then create an organization to take advantage of these opportunities. Entrepreneurship is an effort to improve the ability and run the business with the ability to deal with obstacles and obstacles so that the desired goals can be achieved. For that attitude of an entrepreneur are the willingness, discipline and honest attitude in running a business.
Entrepreneurship is the attitude, the soul, and the ability to always be active and creative in creating something new that is very valuable and useful to both himself and others. Female entrepreneurs are one of the alternative options for women to show the ability to manage the business run. This is in line with a statement from Zimmerer et al. (2008) that more and more women realize that becoming entrepreneurs is the best way to penetrate the dominance of men who inhibit career enhancement through their own business. For that, it needs hard work and a high willingness in running the business so that what is expected of the business can be achieved. Exceptional ability and desire for women to entrepreneurship should get support from all parties. Although women have some limitations, it can be overcome with hard work in running their business. According to Alma (2009), several factors become obstacles for women to become entrepreneurs, among others: (1) Factor femininity, (2) Socio-cultural factors, (3) Emotional factors, (4) Administrative factors, and (5) Educational factors.
The motives underlying the high level of women involvement in working are financial needs, social-relational needs, and self-actualization needs. Financial needs state that the family’s economic conditions, in many instances, often force women to work to add the family income. Household needs are plenty and urgent so that both the husband and wife have to work to be able to meet their daily needs. This condition leaves the wife with no other choice, but to seek employment outside. Social-relational needs a state that women, at some points, choose to work because of their high sense of social relational needs. For these women, their workplace meets their needs. From within themselves, they hold needs of social acceptance, a social identity which is only acquired by involving in the working community. Socializing with office colleagues becomes a more enjoyable agenda than staying at home. Meanwhile, self-actualization needs a state that working is one of the many possible ways that is used by a human being to discover their life meanings. In fact, working, creating, inventing, expressing one's potential, developing one's self, sharing knowledge and experience, finding something, producing something and gaining appreciation, acceptance, and achievement are parts of one's process of self-discovery and attainment of self-fulfillment through the profession.
Women micro-entrepreneurs are those who have a dual function: apart from holding the responsibility of households, they also contribute to boosting family income. Ardhanari (2007) conducted a study on women who have multiple functions on a regular basis. The findings reported that the barriers which women micro-entrepreneurs coped with were their characteristics due to the workloads. These workloads root from women's dual role as well as structural characteristics, such as barriers to gain access to capital (terms and collateral) and access to the market where women have low access to marketing information. Conclusively, the barrier of women's business development is the result of gender stereotypes (gender stereotypes) between women and men in a patriarchal environment.
Besides the barriers in policy, the process of improving the economic development of women still faces injustice and cultural structures issue resulting in placing women in a subordinate position. Whereas in reality, most micro-enterprises has done by women bring a contribution to the economy of the country. The time crisis proves this and on the other side of this business can contribute to the family economy. Therefore, building women economic independence is a necessity to improve the welfare, while at the same time it is expected to lead to equality of access to the public.
To deal with the various conditions mentioned above, woman-micro entrepreneurs need resilience. According to Jackson (2002), resilience is the ability of individuals to adapt well to difficult circumstances. Grotberg (1999), on the other hand, defines resilience as the human capacity to face and overcome difficulties experience and to be tough afterward. Based on these notions, resilience can be delineated as an individual's endurance and perseverance when faced with difficult circumstances in his/her life, attempts of learning, adapting to the circumstances, and rising from the situation for the better.
Resilience may be rooted from several factors. According to Grotberg (1999), the first source of the occurrence of resiliency is external supports, which are supports from the environment around the individual, such as a good relationship with the family, a pleasant environment or relationships with others outside the family. Besides relational models, external supports may also be given as an encouragement to become self-sufficient and make decisions based on their ideas and initiative.
The second source of the occurrence of resiliency comes from an individual’s ability. This kind of source exists within the individual, such as feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. The realization of these feelings is marked by efforts to always be loved and to love others, such as being sensitive to others’ feelings, understanding others’ expectations, having empathy and caring attitude for others.
Meanwhile, the third source is the individual's social and interpersonal abilities, that is, the ability to establish social relations. It is realized through interaction with others and the ability to communicate and solve problems well. Also, this ability will benefit a person to be able to understand the characteristics of himself and others. All these resilience aim to lead the woman-micro entrepreneurs to welfare life (prosperity).
In this contexts, the welfare life (prosperity) is not only studied financially but also even more psychologically (namely psychological well being). So far, research on the Psychological Well Being (PWB) is based on two different approaches, namely the hedonistic and eudaemonistic approach (Ryan & Deci, 2001). Hedonistic approach discusses well-being in the context of happiness felt by an individual. It is understood as an individual’s achievement of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Diener and Lucas developed a measurement model to evaluate the pleasure/pain continuum of human experience. This measurement model is known as “subjective well-being”, which consists of three components, namely life satisfaction, the existence of positive effects, and the absence of adverse effects.
Eudaemonistic approach discusses well-being regarding self-actualization. The measurement of this approach is known as “psychological well-being”. Stauber (2013) explains that the term of psychological well being is well understood as the full achievement derived from an individual's full potential psychological and circumstances when an individual could sincerely accept strength and weaknesses, has life purposes, develops positive relationships with other people, becomes an independent person, can control the environment, and keeps being mature personally. The benchmark of positive well-being is not merely understood as the absence of physical illnesses, yet it is also related to psychologically good feeling (psychologically well). Moreover, it refers to expressing personal feelings for what is felt as a result of his/her life experiences. PWB is also identified by happiness, life-satisfaction, and undetected depression symptoms. Bartram and Boniwell (2007) explained that happiness is a result of psychological well-being and that it is the highest goal every human being wants to achieve.
Based on the above explanations, it can be concluded that psychological well-being is an individual’s condition marked by happiness, life-satisfaction, and undetected depression symptoms. This condition is influenced by positive psychological functions, such as self-acceptance, positive relations, purpose in life, self-development, environmental mastery, and autonomy.
The Objectives and Significance of the Research
This research aimed to find out the model of human development in the way of integrative-holistic for woman-micro entrepreneurs living in the coastal areas of Surabaya. Specifically, this research aimed to fulfill these objectives: (1) exploring and identifying factors which affect the development of woman-micro entrepreneurs' enterprises in the coastal areas of Surabaya, (2) constructing the model of integrative and holistic human development, mainly addressed to women-micro entrepreneurs in the coastal areas of Surabaya to enhance well-being.
Based on that aims, it is expected that this research would give positive contributions in: (1) giving the model of integrative and holistic human development, mainly addressed to women-micro entrepreneurs in the coastal areas of Surabaya to enhance well-being, (2) giving input to Surabaya local government in enhancing the well-being of women-micro entrepreneurs in the coastal areas of Surabaya, and (3) giving input for the implementation and empowerment of women-micro entrepreneurs in the coastal areas of Surabaya.
This research employed a qualitative approach due to its particular setting in reality with the intention of investigating and comprehending what people do (Myers, 2009). This research was done within the natural situation; therefore, there was no limitation constraining the process of understanding the particular phenomenon. Due to paradigms and philosophy underlying social knowledge, the position of phenomenology is on the paradigms of social definition which review human being as unique and active and thus, an interpretative understanding is needed (Creswell, 2007).
The reason underlying the decision for the location as mentioned in this research was the areal position of Sukolilo Baru district, that is located in the coastal area in Surabaya. The unit of analysis in this research was women-micro entrepreneurs living in Sukolilo Baru. The subjects were purposively selected by depending on these following criteria: (1) women-micro entrepreneurs living in Sukolilo Baru, Surabaya, (2) had a role as a supportive spouse, (3) and had a role as a housewife whose primary duty was monitoring the growth and development of their children.
The technique of data collection used in this research was participative observation and a semi-structured interview. The collected data were then analyzed to acquire information which was later used to make a decision. The data were analyzed using an inductive content analysis, which focuses on something in general to more specific or empirical to conceptual understanding through defining process.
The classification of micro enterprises was based on turnover (maximally 100 million rupiahs per year or 8 million rupiahs per month) and workforce (maximally ten people). The average of the asset was below 25 million rupiahs (Indonesian Constitution No. 20, 2008). The participation of women in micro enterprises was quite high. This was proved by the observation which showed that there were entirely some micro enterprises owned by women. Many women actively participated in increasing family income, either together with their husband or stand alone. The enterprises ran also derived either from self-effort or inherited from their parents. At some points, the husband might not interfere in his wife’s enterprise.
The role of women as a micro-entrepreneurs was substantial regarding enhancing their family well-being. The increasing contribution was tightly related with their bargaining power in the household. Women became courageous in giving their aspirations and more independent, mainly for their economy (Liana, 2016). Based on that facts, efforts to built equality (in the context of eliminating the issue of gender inequality) can be maximized effectively in a successful process.
The Issues of Woman-Micro Entrepreneur
The major problem which was commonly experienced by the subjects was the less amount of capital had to develop their enterprises. The second major problem was the market. To market the product of microenterprises into a broader market, there were qualifications which were yet to be comprehended by micro-entrepreneurs. Because of this problem, lots of micro-entrepreneurs rely on wholesalers who usually push their selling price. The other issues were on the management of the enterprises and the lacks of skills and technology (Muljaningsih et al., 2012).
Many attempts had been made by government and private enterprises to overcome these problems, e.g., capital assistance (Pratiwi, 2012), training of entrepreneurship skills (Wahyudin, 2012; Dewi et al., 2012), dan market development for enterprise (Harini et al., 2012), yet in reality there were factors which hampered the development of enterprises, such as: (1) lack of information, (2) lack of socialization, (3) the efforts given were not in accordance with the needs, and (4) lack of confidence to access strengthening provided.
Overview on Psychological Well Being of Woman-Micro Entrepreneurs
The subjects were able to withstand and persistent when faced with difficult circumstances and showed that they tried to learn and to adapt to the circumstances for useful purposes. This was shown by the subjects' efforts and struggles in overcoming issues faced by themselves, their family, and the community surrounding the subjects. The subjects preferred seeking for the solutions of the problem to being clueless. The most apparent evidence was seen when the subjects faced economy problem started from their low income until the high prices of their living needs. Although there was a severe economic problem, the subjects did not stop or gave up. Instead, they looked for solutions which were suitable for their capacity and capability so that their family could solve the problem.
In the other side, the subjects also tried to show tolerance toward their husband who was working every day. The women would not let their spouse work by themselves and entirely responsible as the primary financial provider. Various attempts were made, yet in general, the subjects directly involved in working (e.g., becoming an employee or an entrepreneur within small scales).
Based on the above explanation, the present researchers concluded that the subjects involved in this research were all resilient. Although they failed to show full resilience (e.g., only optimism, self-efficacy, impulse control, and transformative behavior), many indicators as explained by other researchers indicated that they were able to overcome their problem to achieve a better life.
It is concluded that the subjects had assuredly achieved their psychological well-being. However, if the concept of psychological well-being is evaluated based on aspects given by Ryff (1995), then it is found out that there are still some aspects have not achieved yet. Owing to this, the present researchers concluded that the psychological well-being of all subjects was partial. The indicators lied on self-acceptance, positive relation between them, and explicit life purposes.
Holistic and Integrative Human Development Strategies
Based on the above findings, real efforts to build holistic and integrative women micro-entrepreneur could be realized collectively or individually by employing these following strategies.
The first strategy is establishing a strong institution. To achieve this, women micro-entrepreneurs are expected to willingly join a group in which they can learn and help one another. Communities play an impactful role in establishing women micro-entrepreneurs. If there's no existence of the social institution, economy, and culture generated by the entrepreneurs themselves, consequently, the continuity of all programs would be ceased to exist. The efforts of strengthening are exemplified by establishing particular enterprises or cooperative. This is beneficial on account of autonomy and increased bargaining power of women micro-entrepreneurs so that they can expand their enterprise which in turn improves their psychological well-being.
Woman-Micro entrepreneurs have some difficulties when they act individually. The institutionalized togetherness (with the similiar persons or characteristics) strengthens their performance. It was showns by Parwez (2017) that tries to follow a case study method to analyze the community-based entrepreneurship in a marginal community (Muslim). Many self-employed Muslim workers and small businesses in urban centers in a non-Islamic society indicate that they bound to have a great propensity for entrepreneurship compared to the indigenous population. The government needs to introduce a policy with implicative measures for financial and technical support to these entrepreneurial activities.
The second strategy is building a strong capital. One of the weaknesses owned by women micro-entrepreneurs is the skill of managing capital. Therefore, building access to the capital providers or creditors will solve parts of capital needs. In fact, many micro enterprises managed by women need more funds coming from capital providers. On the other hands, the capital providers have enough funds to be supplied to microenterprises. There is a gap in which both sides never meet one another, and as a consequence, there is no transaction happening. Several complications which may cause difficulties for women micro-entrepreneurs to access capital providers are: the unacquaintance between capital providers with micro-entrepreneurs, the differences of habits which women micro-entrepreneurs are not familiar with accounting whereas banking is very familiar with accounting, the lack of skills to organize an enterprise, and the difficulties for fulfilling administrative requirements demanded by funding owners. Collecting a sum of capital within groups could become an alternative for capital strengthening. Groups can increase collected capital by opening access to banks or other capital sources.
It is a common thing to know funders carefully fund other parties since everyone lending or investing their money to whoever expects their fund safe. In other words, the respective fund is guaranteed to at least return or to give profits. If there's no acquaintance between funders and those who are funded, the transaction will not happen. Very often, small enterprises do not bookkeep their expenses at all or even make more straightforward bookkeeping on things, such as calculating the depreciation of fixed assets, calculating personal's or family's expenses, and differentiating asset belonging to enterprises' and private's. This condition would cause burdensome to owners to carry out a feasibility study.
Carrying out feasibility studies is a determiner to capital owners to decide whether they are willing to grant the enterprise or not. Hence, the skill to organize feasibility study is essential since it is possible that the granted enterprises are potentially able to give more profit. However, because the presentation of its feasibility does not show any potential in reality, thus, the capital owners are not willing to grant. In other words, although the enterprises are believed to be able to give a significant profit, its feasibility is not convincing enough for capital providers or funders, the enterprise will lose it a chance to be granted.
The function of the strong capital was proved by Prohorovs and Beizitere (2015). Based on their research at Latvia in 2013-2014 about the amounts and the structure of micro-entreprises financing with regard to the three main sources (namely: bank loans, leasing and factoring), they stated that in 2014, bank loans, leasing, and factoring constituted about 89% of micro-entreprises financing from formal external sources. These conditions are similiar with the woman-micro entrepreneurs at coastal Surabaya. According to Layyinaturrobaniyah and & Muizu (2017), financing is the soul and bloos of the micro business activities.
The third is building an information network of enterprises development technique. By having this, it is expected that women micro-entrepreneurs could increase the quality of their products as well as a sense of competition. Also, by cooperating with the government, private, or even universities, it is expected that limitation on knowledge in skills and technology could be solved so that sense of competition and production could be better. The technical skill which becomes an obstacle for women micro-entrepreneurs concerns with an improvement of product quality involving creativity and innovation. Product competitiveness could be achieved by developing the uniqueness of the products. In the context of product development, the core competition lies in the power of competitiveness compared to competitors' products. The excellence of product competitiveness is created when the products have core competence which can be differed from other products and hard to be replicated. Core competence, therefore, could be gained through creation or accessibility to better production factors compared to competitors.
The networking has a significant contribution for the sustainable entrepreneurship. It was shown by Huse (2014) that gave an evidence on how entrepreneurs use their network to be able to plan, start and operate a business.
The fourth is building marketing information. When building marketing information, women micro-entrepreneurs should not only rely on conventional marketing, but also utilize technology in marketing. Marketing development could be done by having marketing information or forming marketing units. Women micro-entrepreneurs could cooperate with community organizations to market their products. As a result, their product's capacity and their bargaining power to undertake wholesaler could be increased. As an effort to preserve the continuity of enterprises, women micro-entrepreneurs could expand their networking by working all together with more significant enterprises or other related enterprises. This could be done by utilizing facilities provided by government, private, or universities.
This strategy has been tried by Githaiga et al. (2016). Based on the research, they stated that by understanding how the adopted market strategy influences market access and consequently the competitiveness of an enterprise, and entrepreneur is better equipped to steer their enterprises to competitiveness. The adoption processes are not only done conventionally but also technologically, epecially by using the internet (information and communication technology). It was proved by Weeramanthri et al. (2015). Their research proved that literature suggested relationship between ICT usage and business performance. Literature suggests ICT as an enabler for those four types of innovations.
The fifth is giving accompaniment. Efforts on increasing confidence of women micro-entrepreneurs must be in line with contribution given by all parties including government, private, and universities. The targets of accompaniment committed which are addressed to women micro-entrepreneurs are to reduce or to possibly eliminate the weaknesses and constraints faced, to improve and to utilize the advantages and opportunities, such as: (a) The growing scale of business, business opportunities, and market share. With the assistance of external parties, it is expected that the scale of their businesses can be improved: from micro into small businesses. Also, with the aid of access to the outside parties, then the business opportunities and market share can be developed; (b) access to sources of capital. Facilitating access to funders/investors or donors/credit providers will solve the problem of capital requirements of the business. It is not that these inventors and credit providers do not want not to provide funding to employers, but because they have not known each other. Therefore, we need facilitators who can link up the two parties; (c) Increased entrepreneurial skills. Entrepreneurial skill is a matter that must be owned by a businessman. This skill involves making decisions, delegating authority clearly, taking risks moderately, motivating employees, cooperating with various parties, and other entrepreneurial traits; (d) Improving managerial and technical skills. An entrepreneur is a manager; therefore, he/she needs the capability to coordinate all subordinates and manage all of his/her potentials. Since the technical skills of employees working in micro-enterprises are generally low, consequently, it will affect the quality of the products against the determined standard.
The giving accompaniment should be actualized by giving training and technical assisstance. It was needed because of the technical skills of employees working in micro-enterprises (especially woman micro entrepreneurs) are generally low. Meanwhile, the technical and managerial skills of woman micro entrepeneurs play a significant role in Nigeria (Ikupolati et al., 2017). Their reserach findings have shown that both the entrepreneurs’ conceptual and technical skills contribute to the managerial skills of the entrepreneurs which have brought about growth in SMEs in Nigeria. The study recommends that entrepreneurs should endeavour to acquire conceptual skills for strategic planning for the enterprise. And SMEs that are related to engineering and other technical orientations should ensure that entrepreneurs acquire such technical skills so as to leverage for the growth of their enterprise.
To establish women involving in public activities as an effort to support the family economy is not sufficient if it is done partially. Holistic and integrative approach are necessities. Based on the findings and discussion process that have been explained in the previous section, the results of this study showed that the efforts to establish holistic and integrative women micro-entrepreneurs could be done individually or collectively by using these following strategies: (1) building individual and institutional strengthening; (2) strengthening modal; (3) building network of information and developing entrepreneurial technique; (4) building a network of market information; and (5) giving accompaniment. These strategies were also proven by Nichter & Goldmark (2005) and Bekele & Worku (2008).
This work was funded by the Research Institute and Community Services of Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya