Micro-Entrepreneurship: Examining the Factors Affecting the Success of Women Street Food Vendors

Previous studies on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have concentrated on their contribution to the economy, treating such businesses as aggregate and homogeneous. What is lacking is studies on micro-enterprises, especially women’s street food vending, and the factors that influence their success. This study aims to examine the context-specific factors that influence the success of women-owned street food vending businesses in the Accra Metropolis. An informal sector success framework is built to derive appropriate factors based on theoretical and empirical literature. A cross-sectional survey design is used, involving quantitative primary data collected from a sample of 300 women street food vendors. The findings of the study indicate key success determining factors such as business experience, difficulty in food preparation, difficulty in obtaining key raw material and the age of the respondents. From the results, the business characteristics of women’s experience indicate that those with longer periods of engagement in business have a greater likelihood of success. There is evidence that, the difficulty in obtaining key raw materials due to seasonal changes and limited access to storage facilities, however, translates into limited opportunities for the success of these women-owned street food businesses. Capital constraints do not seem important in determining the success of food vending micro-enterprises, thus not supporting the resource-based theory of business growth. In terms of individual socio-cultural characteristics, the study again revealed that married street food vendors are constrained by family and community responsibilities, hindering the full realization of business growth. The results show that the age of the women in the business is a relevant success factor. This is the first study in Ghana to show that the individual, family and community features of women influence the success of micro-enterprises. The findings of this study provide useful information for policymakers to address the relevant constraints faced by these women vendors by minimizing the difficulty in getting key raw materials, which is sometimes due to financial and seasonal factors.