Female Entrepreneurship: from Women’s Empowerment to Shared Value Creation

Abstract

This paper is an investigation on female entrepreneurship, women’s enterprise development and the opportunities to create shared value. Enterprise development can make a significant contribution to women’s empowerment and gender equality and has a key role in gender strategies. Thus, understanding these topics together has become important. Nevertheless, there is a lack of research regarding the combination of the concepts. The framework arose due the fact that, although women are making relevant advancements in entrepreneurship, yet, if compared to men, they lack access to finance, training, and rights, besides differing in terms of economic opportunities. To tackle this disparity, WEConnect International is promoting equal access and opportunity for them to compete. Large organizations tend to engage with a limited pool of vendors, which excludes qualified women-owned businesses and others, therefore missing out on cost savings and profit, and possibly on some important innovations. The initiative aims to locate women-owned businesses, certify them and introduce them to business opportunities. Going further on studies about women’s enterprise is necessary because of the rising of women in the economic scenario, as their businesses are having a growing impact on the economy and society.