Hakka Ethnic s History of Pioneering Analysis of Women s Entrepreneurship In Miaoli County

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1 Chinese Business Review, ISSN February 2011, Vol. 10, No. 2, Hakka Ethnic s History of Pioneering Analysis of Women s Entrepreneurship In Miaoli County Yu-Ning Hu National United University, Miaoli, Taiwan People pay much more attention on females who start their own business in the past two decades. One reason is that the notion of gender equality is brought into practice, therefore, starting a business is no longer for male only. Another reason is that female entrepreneurs can also improve their social status and drive the economy by starting their own enterprises. The purpose of microfinance programs is to encourage women to start an enterprise. Moreover, women can get financial sustainability, poverty alleviation, and more female empowerment through their business. The research applies the conception of microfinance programs to discuss if 10 Hakka female entrepreneurs can achieve the effect of empowerment through the promotion of economic ability. Furthermore, the research focuses on Hakka female entrepreneurs in Miaoli area, and probes into entrepreneurial situations and difficulties in order to find out what can be empowered for expanding their business. Keywords: empowerment, Hakka, female entrepreneur Introduction The purpose of Microfinance programs is to encourage women to start an enterprise. Moreover, women can get financial sustainability, poverty alleviation, and more female empowerment through their business. The research applies the conception of microfinance programs to discuss if 10 Hakka female entrepreneurs can achieve the effect of empowerment through the promotion of economic ability. Furthermore, the research focuses on Hakka female entrepreneurs in Miaoli area, and probes into entrepreneurial situations and difficulties in order to find out what can be empowered for expanding their business. Literature Review The entrepreneurial motivation can be understood as two components: push factors and pull factors. Push factors are negative factors such as loosing job or unsatisfying current situation. Pull factors are positive factors such as finding opportunities, pursuing personal achievement and social network (Pattison, 1993; Barnir & Smith, 2002; Kristiansen, 2004). The researches will analyze the female entrepreneurs motivations of push and pull factors. The motivated entrepreneurs look for opportunities to start business. Drucker (1985) told us seven sources of innovation: unexpected occurrences, incongruities, process needs, industry and market changes, demographic changes, changes in perception, and new knowledge. In the entrepreneurship level, the researchers sort the sources of entrepreneurial opportunity by entrepreneur individual-specific factors and Yu-Ning Hu, Ph.D., associate professor, National United University. 131

2 132 HAKKA ETHNIC S HISTORY OF PIONEERING ANALYSIS environmental factors. When the opportunity is taken and company is founded, entrepreneurs must construct and shape the resources to build the company s core competence. Brush, Greene and Hart (2001) thought there are six types of resources: physical, financial, human, technology, social and organizational resources. The entrepreneurs have in human capital to create industry to explore opportunities (Shane, 2000), new business development, business performance (Davidsson & Honig, 2003). Alvarez and Busenitz (2001) thought resource based view is proper to be applied to understand the decisions, opportunity recognitions, organizational ability, and competitive advantage of new ventures. The researchers will analyze the companies resources based on the taxonomy proposed by Brush, Greene and Hart. Method This study applied textual analysis on a series TV programs called The Summit Hakka Power, produced by Dr. Fan Yang-Sung during In the programs, Dr. Fan interviewed successful Hakka entrepreneurs, letting them talk about their background, motivation to start an enterprise, good and bad experience in the venture, feelings about Hakka ethnic, expectations from the government, and so forth. Among the data set, the researchers take the interview records of female entrepreneurs who were born in Hakka village as research objects to meet the research objective. There were ten of them. Furthermore, during the analysis process, researches conducted supplemental in-depth interviews with those ten female entrepreneurs to discuss the draft report about their cases, and ask them to supplement necessary data. In this way, the validity of this study was ensured. Case data was interpreted and classified into categories of background, motivation, resource, obstacles and solutions, and was summarized into tables. Variety of sources of TV program DVDs, tapes, scripts and notes of interviews were kept. Explanations and conclusions were provided on the basis of these chain evidences. Results The demographics of the ten female Hakka entrepreneurs are listed in Table 1. The female entrepreneurs age of starting a business is getting younger, and their educational level is getting higher. Most of them have family with children, and run business with husband. The industry sector concentrates in service, and only two of them are in manufacturing sector. Newly developed industries, like electronics, Internet, medical beauty, and art design were also observed. Their motivation is mainly pull factors, which came from recognizing market opportunities or good foundation provided by family. Push factors are yet important because up to four of them started their entrepreneurship passively. The motivation is summarized in Table 2. About the source of entrepreneurial opportunities, most female entrepreneurs found them in the trend of environment changes, such as in economy, society and technology. Half of them have had built relative work experience or professionalism to take on those opportunities. Four of them could even analyze the changing environment down to the market trend or product trend level to recognize opportunities. However, three of them developed entrepreneurial opportunities by extending established family business. The summary is in Table 3.

3 HAKKA ETHNIC S HISTORY OF PIONEERING ANALYSIS 133 Table 1 Personal Background of Hakka Female Entrepreneurs ID Age Age when company started Job Education Marriage Number of children Operating with spouse A Head of beauty school Vocational school yes 3 yes service Industry sector B Sales manager EMBA yes 0 no manufacturing of electronics manufacturing C Merchant of furniture Bachelor s degree yes 1 yes service and furnishings D Merchant of furnishings Master s degree yes 2 yes service E Head of beauty school Vocational school no 1 no service F Merchant of produce Study in university yes 3 yes service G Merchant of jewelry EMBA yes 1 yes service H Manager of chain Bachelor s degree yes 3 no service medical beauty clinics I Manager of silk store Vocational school yes 2 yes manufacturing J N/A N/A Manager of internet company Bachelor s degree yes 0 yes service Table 2 Summary of Entrepreneurial Motivation Type Item Case Motivation of push Motivation of pull To change the current way of living Current job is not fitting with personal goal Loosing job Change of regulation or law Market opportunity Pursuing personal achievement Family encouragement Inheriting family business A C E H D, G, J Table 3 Summary of Entrepreneurial Opportunity Source Item Case Personal factor Environmental factor Work experience and expertise Interest and habit Personal or family resource Environmental trend Product trend Market demand B C, F G, I A, B, C, F, G E, G F, G, H A, B, C, D, F, G, I D, E D, F, I, J As to financial resource, female entrepreneurs liked to conservatively and prudently expand business with retained earnings or personal own savings. As to intellectual and human resource, female entrepreneurs relied heavily on family and friends. They tend to recruit and train staff by themselves. While recruiting, they will take advantage of their interpersonal network or relationship capital.

4 134 HAKKA ETHNIC S HISTORY OF PIONEERING ANALYSIS About reputation, female entrepreneurs all give weight to integrity in practicing business. They respect product and service quality, brand image and word of mouth. They also think highly of customer relationship management. Some of them were also famous for being innovative. Besides, most of them are famous in taking social and environmental responsibility, such as sponsoring charity and Hakka cultural events, making donations, providing scholarships, etc.. Because most of the female entrepreneurs are in the service sector, the physical resource seems less important to them. However, they know to control the upstream supplies, and select good location of downstream outlets. Technical and organizational resource seems weak, either. Technology usually exists in form of the key player s expertise, and only three of them use intellectual property rights to protect technology. Only two of them have developed organizational strength in agility and innovation, which can go beyond the individual level. The summary of Hakka female entrepreneurs resource is listed in Table 4 below. Table 4 Summary of Resource Type Item Case Personal savings C, D, F, H, E, G Financial resource Loan I, A Retained earnings Knowledge and experience A, G Vision and judgment A, D, E, F, G Interpersonal network A, C, F, G Intellectual and human resource Reputation Physical resource Technological resource Organizational resource Relationship capital A, C, E, G, H, I Incubator J Self-recruitment Self-training A, G, H Family and friends Integrity in management Brand image and quality A, B, C, D, F, G, I, H, E Innovation B, D, I, J Customer relationship B, C, D, F, G, I, H, E, J Social and environmental responsibility A, C, D, F, G, I, H, E, J Bought by capital A Taken from forerunners I Expanded with retained earnings F, I Good site location F, G Control of raw material D, C, G, I Expertise A, D, E Patent, trade mark and copyrights D, J Trade secret and process ability D, I Staff skills and performance Agility F Innovation D

5 HAKKA ETHNIC S HISTORY OF PIONEERING ANALYSIS 135 About the obstacles, in the personal and family aspect, these successful female entrepreneurs continuously lean how to handle complicated and tedious problems. Some of them go for higher degree in management, consult external experts, improve management system, and ask help from husband and other family members. Most of them run business with husbands. In the market aspect, these female entrepreneurs can address business problems with right management tools, such as competing in niche market with quality, innovation, and closer customer relationship. Some of them have hands on new forms of channels, such as international exhibitions, internet and home delivery system. They can also overcome the obstacles of being businesswomen by superior professionalism, worm and considerate manner, ability, humility and the ease to win trust. However, these solutions were rarely from governmental assistance, female entrepreneurs still expect from the government to provide more help in business support, family support, and societal support systems, making the entrepreneurial environment even friendlier to the female (see Table 5). Table 5 Summary of Obstacles and Solutions Type Item Solution Personal Family Market Government Vocational Lifetime learning, pursuing MBA degree. Management ability Market orientation, branding, patenting, making business objectives specific, winning customer trust, consulting external experts. New staff recruitment and training Delegated to company. Adaptation Time management, diversifying product lines. Housework Family support Competition Fund raising Distribution and promotion Sexual discrimination Business support mechanism Family support mechanism Societal support mechanism Hiring housekeeper or asking help from friends and husband. Husband s involvement in business. Niche market, customer relationship management, innovation, quality. Bank loans, equity financing. Internationalization, participating in overseas expositions, building own channels, consignment sales, counter sales, home delivery service, Internet marketing and sales, packaging, advertisement, word of mouth, etc.. Being considerate, integrity, humility, superior ability, professionalism. Training, consulting, and financing programs. Elderly and children care programs. Associations, social networking services. Conclusion This study investigated ten Hakka female entrepreneurs, and the following conclusions can be drawn: (1) The ethnicity and gender seem not to pose limitation to the Hakka female entrepreneurs. On the contrary, the Hakka spirit of closer family and perseverance nourishes them in the business career. Furthermore, these successful female entrepreneurs feed back and foster Hakka culture in form of implementing their corporate social responsibility. Female gender gives them advantage in ability of listening, understanding, patience, and winning trust from business counterparts. Female characteristics also make them better than men in fields like human resource management and customer relationship management. (2) As to government s empowerment programs, Hakka female entrepreneurs are a good target to aim at. Hakka females are assiduous, prudent, conservative, and good at scaling up the business through customer relationship. They seem to be entrepreneurs of low risk but high potential. With more supportive financial

6 136 HAKKA ETHNIC S HISTORY OF PIONEERING ANALYSIS resources, their business may thrive with more odds. (3) About the content of empowerment programs, what the female entrepreneurs need are subjects about marketing, staffing and training, financing, technology innovation and intellectual property rights. In addition to subsidized management classes, the governmental support of elderly and children care, and business or interest communities for social networking are also helpful in supporting their careers and businesses. References Alvarez, S. A., & Busenitz, L. W. (2001). The entrepreneurship of resource-based theory. Journal of Management, 27(6), Barnir, A., & Smith, K. A. (2002). Inter-firm alliances in the small business: The role of social networks. Journal of Small Business Management, 40, Brush, C. G., Greene, P. G., & Hart, M. M. (2001). From initial idea to unique advantage: The entrepreneurial challenge of constructing a resource base. The Academy of Management Executive, 15(1), Davidsson, P., & Honig, B. (2003). The role of social and human capital among nascent entrepreneurs. Journal of Business Venturing, 18, Dollinger, M. J. (2003). Entrepreneurship: Strategies and resources (3rd ed.). Prentice Hall. Drucker, P. F. (1985). Innovation and entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles. New York: Harper and Row. Kristiansen, S. (2004). Social networks and business success. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 63(5), Pattison, P. (1993). Algebraic models for social networks. Cambridge University Press. Scott, C. E. (1986). Why more women are becoming entrepreneurs. Journal of Small Business Management, 24(4), Schumpeter, J. A. (1934). The theory of economic development: An inquiry into profits, capital, credit, interest and the business cycle. New York: Free Press. Schumpeter, J. A. (1971). The fundamental phenomenon of economic development, entrepreneurship and economic development (pp ). New York: Free Press. Shane, S. (2000). Prior knowledge and the discovery of entrepreneurship opportunities. Organization Science, 11(4),