Determinants of business performance among women entrepreneurs in Southern Thailand

Since several decades ago, women entrepreneurs in Thailand have been continuously encountering issues and challenges in business which could be divided into three important parts, namely personal (motivation & risk-taking), social (work-family balance) and organizational (management, marketing, financial and
operational competencies) issues. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to examine the determinant factors that affect the performance of women entrepreneurs in the Southern region of Thailand. The study utilized both quantitative and qualitative approaches that comprised of a self-administered questionnaire and semistructured interviews to gain a better understanding of the study context. The respondents were the Southern Thailand women entrepreneurs who were sole
proprietors and had been operating their business for more than two years. About 330
usable questionnaires were used for the data analysis. This study also involved interview sessions with 21 selected women entrepreneurs from three districts, i.e. Hatyai, Songkhla, and Sadao, to probe for additional information. The findings discovered that risk-taking has a positive and significant relationship with business performance. Thus, only one out of seven linear relationships is found positive and
significant. In addition, the qualitative results revealed that the main motivation for
the women entrepreneurs to start their business is the positive advice from others, i.e. family and friends, and also their own personal desire to earn incomes to support their families’ expenditures. Most respondents seem to ignore the existence of risks, and in most cases they are able to resolve their business issues competently. They do not experience any family conflict; hence they are capable of balancing their work and family matters. Furthermore, they also do not face serious problems related to management, marketing, financial and operational competencies. The results of this
study provide evidence and explanation of the determinants of business performance among women entrepreneurs in Southern Thailand, and also contribute some crucial insights to the policy- makers to further develop and improve the current policy and training programs or workshops for the Thai entrepreneurs.