A STUDY ON ENTREPRENEURIAL CHARACTERISTICS AND SUCCESS OF WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS OPERATING FASHION AND APPAREL BUSINESS

Women business owners are continuing to demonstrate economic process worldwide. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), one in eleven (8.9%) women is involved in entrepreneurship across the globe and India occupies the second position among the 22 countries where 14.1 percent of women have ventured into entrepreneurship (Reynolds et al., 2002). With increasing importance given to research on women entrepreneurs, this study is focused to analyze the entrepreneurial characteristics with the success of women entrepreneurs operating micro, small and medium scale fashion and apparel enterprises. A self-administered questionnaire was employed to collect the data from the sample in the study area. The data collected was processed using SPSS software for comparing the means of the entrepreneurial characteristics and success of women entrepreneurs. For the purpose, the women entrepreneurs were classified into four levels of success based on the employment generation and the sales turnover. Cross tabulation is carried out to show the significance of the different entrepreneurial characteristics and the success of women entrepreneurs. The findings of the study resulted in listing of empirically grounded growth-related entrepreneurial characteristics that are associated with successful women operated firms.