Business Leadership and Gender Equality: Engaging Women from Developing Countries in Digital Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Women in business leadership play a crucial role in improving organizational performance, innovation, and collaboration and driving economic growth and development. However, numerous challenges such as cultures, traditions, education and gender limit the women’s opportunity to participate in civilian entrepreneurship. In addition, developing countries are facing serious challenges in this digital economic arena. Objective: this article analyzes business leadership, gender equality, and women's engagement in digital entrepreneurship. It focuses on how digital technology was used to grow their business. Methodology/Approach: a questionnaire was designed to collect data from 50 female entrepreneurs in the urban area of Durban, South Africa, in August 2023. The methodology used in this study was exploratory research and thematic analysis. A non-probability convenience sampling technique was used to ascertain digital technology usage among women entrepreneurs. The study is also based on secondary data from various documents, like a systematic analysis of scholarly articles, financial reports, and case studies retrieved from government sources and academic platforms. Results: the analysis draws from NVivo for qualitative synthesis, and the study uses descriptive statistical analysis to evaluate digital women's entrepreneurship. The key findings of the study reveal that there are low levels of representation of women in entrepreneurship. The study found that 72.1% of respondents do not have the skills needed to use current technology, which will lead to low levels of adoption rates of digital technology. Subsequently, 74.5% of participants reported that they do not possess the requisite skills to operate the most recent technologies. Indeed, women cannot fully benefit from this expanding industry, which would be closed by increasing the proportion of women working in ICT. Based on the obtained results, this study further investigates the strategies for women business leaders in the context of women entrepreneurs in South Africa. Implications: it recommends that there are tremendous opportunities for business leaders among women entrepreneurs, and Value: therefore, the government of South Africa should encourage and support the women entrepreneurs with the necessary financial support to develop its digital economy.