Benchmarking practices of women entrepreneurs operate home-based small businesses in rural areas: Pakistan a case in point

Noor Muhammad, Sania Binte-Saleem

    Research output: Contribution to conferenceAbstractpeer-review

    Abstract

    Benchmarking is a process of measuring the performance
    of a firm’s products, services, or processes against those
    of another business considered to be the best in the market.
    However, benchmarking practices could not well explored
    in the context of home-based small businesses operated
    by women entrepreneurs in rural areas. To add new insights
    in previous literature, we take a qualitative approach based
    on semi-structured interviews from 17 home-based women
    entrepreneurs operate small scale businesses in the rural areas
    of Pakistan. The findings reveal that women entrepreneurs
    undertake two approaches for benchmarking and these are
    home-based businesses and market-based businesses.
    Home-based benchmarking practices with similar businesses
    are carried out with a collaborative environment and strong
    network linkages among these women entrepreneurs and
    information are shared in all sorts of benchmarking except
    financial benchmarking. However, those women entrepreneurs
    targeting the similar home-based businesses for benchmarking
    achieved entrepreneurial growth. In the other hand, there is no
    cooperative environment for those women targeted marketbased businesses for benchmarking dominated by men and
    face business failure. We contribute in threefold. Theoretically,
    the paper offers a new avenue for research to explore further
    benchmarking practices of women entrepreneurs in rural areas
    in different countries. Practically, we show how benchmarking
    takes place through collaborative practices on the poor
    infrastructure environment by women entrepreneurs. Finally, this
    paper could provide practical advice and knowledge regarding
    benchmarking practices to other women entrepreneurs who are
    in similar businesses in rural areas
    Original languageEnglish
    Publication statusPublished - 9 Feb 2018
    EventAustralian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research Exchange (ACERE) Proceedings, Queensland University of Technology 6 – 9 February Austra - QUT Business School , Brisbane, Australia
    Duration: 6 Feb 20189 Feb 2018
    http://acereconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ACERE-2018-Program-F.pdf

    Conference

    ConferenceAustralian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research Exchange (ACERE) Proceedings, Queensland University of Technology 6 – 9 February Austra
    Country/TerritoryAustralia
    CityBrisbane
    Period6/02/189/02/18
    Internet address

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