South African female entrepreneurs’ motivational factors: Differences between young and established businesses owners

Entrepreneurship has been pointed out as a contributing factor leadingto increased job creation, sustained economic development and,ultimately, economic growth. However, many young businesses struggleto survive the first three years, subsequently jeopardising the fullpotential they may have in terms of contributing to the economy. Theliterature suggests that motivational factors may play a contributingrole in business sustainability and that the reason people decide tostart or remain in business might play a part in the survival of a business.The purpose of this study was to determine which motivationalfactors female entrepreneurs deem most important and whether thesefactors differ between young and more established entrepreneurs inthe South African context. The study made use of primary data obtainedthrough self-administered questionnaires. A convenience samplingtechnique was used, resulting in a final sample of 515 femaleowners of small to medium-sized business in South Africa. Variousstatistical techniques were employed to analyse the data includinginternal-consistency reliability, descriptive statistics, factor analysisand an independent sample t-test. Results indicated that one’s contributionto others and independence as motivational factors yieldedthe highest means, followed by self-fulfilment and having high statusin the community. Furthermore, a statistically significant differencebetween entrepreneurs with less than three years of experience andthose with more than three years of experience was only observed formotivation derived from self-fulfilment. In more established businesses,the entrepreneurs had greater motivation to focus on self-fulfilmentaspects. The study showed that South African female entrepreneurscould be considered more socially motivated and less profit-driven,which is also supported by the literature to an extent.