Challenges and Barriers Faced by Women Entrepreneurs in Oman

The assignment analyzed the factors affecting Omani women entrepreneurs in Muscat. The main barriers identified were lack of family support and orthodoxies, male dominance, hostility towards women's engagement in business, non-cooperation from male counterparts, difficulty dealing with males, weak bargaining position, harassment, lack of experience, and lack of proper trainings. Additionally, the study found that capital is not a barrier for Omani women entrepreneurs, but they face issues due to political pressure and red tape. The recommendations suggest encouraging employers to hire more women, running awareness programs to support family initiatives, providing loan schemes, offering training facilities, and simplifying government procedures to support women entrepreneurs.

PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
[Document subtitle]

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Chapter 4: Presentation and Analysis of Data
4.1 Introduction
The data collected from the survey has been computed and translated into numeric code for the
exact percentage using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for the descriptive
analysis of the variables. The statistical tools that have been used on the collected data are
descriptive statistics, and correlation analysis. The data is also represented in the forms of graphs
and charts which are mad in SPSS itself. The descriptive statistics will help in viewing the data
in concise form and the correlation analysis will help in understanding the relationship between
the different variables identified for the study. The results will help in understanding whether it
satisfies the hypotheses or not.
4.2 Survey findings
Characteristics of the respondents
Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean
Std.
Deviation
Respondent ID 20 2.E8 2.E8 2.02E8 5.916
Marital Status 20 1 4 2.25 .967
Eductional Level 20 2 6 3.05 1.191
Work Experience 20 1 1 1.00 .000
Age of Participants 20 1 3 2.05 .605

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Country of Education 20 1 1 1.00 .000
Lack of family support
and orthodoxies 20 1 3 2.05 .605
Family Obligations 20 2 3 2.35 .489
Male Dominance 20 2 3 2.30 .470
Hostility of Society
towards engagement of
women in business
20 2 4 2.75 .639
Non-cooperation of
male counterparts 20 2 4 2.75 .851
Difficulty in dealing
with Males 20 2 4 2.90 1.021
Weak bargaining
positions 20 2 2 2.00 .000
Harassment 20 3 4 3.80 .410
Lack of Experience 20 1 2 1.20 .410
Lack of Proper
Trainings 20 1 2 1.20 .410
Poor credit faciliites for
wormen 20 2 4 3.00 .562
Lack of Finances 20 3 4 3.35 .489

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Heavy taxes, fees,
duties, etc. 20 4 5 4.15 .366
Inflation 20 4.0 5.0 4.150 .3663
Lack of political
experience 20 1 3 1.70 .657
Lack of proper political
trainings 20 1 3 1.45 .605
Stringent regulations
and policies 20 3 4 3.20 .410
Red-tape, bribery, etc. 20 1 2 1.75 .444
Lack of governmental
support 20 2 3 2.45 .510
Improper Training and
Development
Facilities/Centers
20 1 2 1.20 .410
Valid N (listwise) 20
The table above shows that the maximum women who have responded to the questionnaire are
widow and most of them have attained the education level up to PhD. Most of them have an
experience of working between 1-5 years and most of them are between the age group of 36-50
years. Almost all of them have obtained their education degree from Oman.
When they were asked about the factors that affect them as entrepreneurs in Oman, most of them
agreed to the factors related to weak bargaining power, lack of experience and lack of proper
trainings. To all other factors, either they responded neutrally or they disagreed to them. When
they were asked about the financial and economic domain, then also most of them did not agree

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with any of the factors. The respondents agreed to the factor of existence of red-tape or bribery,
and the improper training and the development facilities for the domain of political and
environmental background knowledge.
Questionnaire
The questionnaire was given to 35 women for rating and 20 of them returned the questionnaire
with the rating score and they were filled completely. The questionnaire was guided by the
knowledgeable people in the field. The questionnaire is formed on the basis of Likert scale. The
set of questions were divided into 5 parts. They are: Demographic (1) Family, self and Social
Domain (2) Financial & Economic Domain (3) Background Knowledge (4) and Political &
Environmental Domain (5). The sample of the questionnaire can be found in the appendix.
The questionnaire is valid and reliable because the reliability and validity was tested using the
Cronbach’s Alpha in the SPSS. This helps in measuring the internal consistency i.e. it tells that
how close are the items in the study as a group. The alpha was more than 0.70 which means that
the level of consistency is acceptable and the data can be used for analysis.

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4.3 Analysis using Statistical Packages
Family, Self and Social Domain of Respondents
From the above table, it can be analyzed that 65% of the women are married, 20% are widow
and 15% are single.

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From the above table, it can be analyzed that 40% of women have attained education till
secondary level, 35% of women have done diploma, 10% have studied till bachelors, 10% have
done masters and only 5% are PhD.
From the above table, it can be analyzed that all the 20 women who have responded to the
questionnaire, i.e. 100% of the respondents have a work experience of 1-5 years.

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From the above table, it can be analyzed that 65% of the women respondents are between the
age-group of 22-35 years, 20% are between the age group of 36-50 years and only 15% are less
than 20 years old.

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From the above table, it can be analyzed that 100% of the respondents have chosen Oman as
their country of education.
From the above table, it can be analyzed that 65% of the respondents agree that lack of family
support and orthodoxies existed, 15% strongly agreed to it and only 20% of them were neutral
for this factor.

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From the above table, it can be analyzed that 65% of the respondents agree that they have the
family obligations and 35% of them are neutral for that.
From the above table, it can be analyzed that 70% of the women agree that male dominance
prevails in the society and 30% are neutral for that.

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From the given table, it can be analyzed that 35 % of the respondents agree that the hostility of
the society towards the involvement of women in business existed. 10% of the respondents
disagree with this factor and the other 35% of them remained neutral.

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From the above given factor, it can be analyzed that 50% of the respondents agree that face non-
cooperation of male counterparts. 25% of the respondents disagree to the factor and the
remaining 25% were neutral.
From the above table, it can be analyzed that 55% of the respondents agree that they face
difficulties in dealing with the males and the remaining 45 % of the respondents disagree with
this factor.

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From the above table, it can be analyzed that 100% of the respondents agree to the factor that
they have weak bargaining positions in the market.
From the above table, it can be analyzed that 80 % of the respondents disagree with the factor
that they get harassed at the work place and the remaining 20 % of them were neutral for this
factor.

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From the above table, it can be analyzed that 80% of the respondents strongly agree that they
face challenges due to lack of experience and the remaining 20 % agree with the factor.

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From the above table, it can be analyzed that 80% of the respondents strongly agree that they
don’t get the proper trainings and the remaining 20% also agree to this factor.
Financial & Economic Domain
From the above table, it can be analyzed that 15% of the respondents agree that there is an
existence for the poor credit facilities for women, 15% of the respondents disagree to it and 70%
of them were neutral for this factor.

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From the above table, it can be analyzed that 35% of the respondents disagree that there is lack
of finances and the remaining 65 % of the respondents were neutral for this factor.
From the above table, it can be analyzed that 85% of the respondents disagree that there is
business is being impacted by the heavy taxed, duties, fees, etc. and the 15% of the respondents
strongly disagreed with the factor.

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From the above table, it can be analyzed that 85% of the respondents disagree that inflation
affects the growth the business and the remaining 15% strongly disagreed with the factor.
Background Knowledge Political & Environmental Domain

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From the above table, it can be analyzed that 40% of the respondents strongly agree that lack of
political experiences impacts the business, 50% agree to it and only 10% of them were neutral
for this factor.
From the above table, it can be analyzed that 60% of the respondents strongly agree that lack of
proper political trainings existed, 35% agree to it and only 5% of them were neutral for this
factor.

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From the above table, it can be analyzed that 20 % of the respondents disagree that stringent
regulations and the policies affect their business and the remaining 80 % of the respondents
remained neutral for this factor.

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From the above table, it can be analyzed that 25% of the respondents strongly agree that red tape,
bribery, etc. existed and the other 75 % of the respondents also agree with the factor.
From the above table, it can be analyzed that 55% of the respondents agree that there is lack of
governmental support and the remaining 45% of them were neutral for this factor.

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From the above table, it can be analyzed that 80% of the respondents strongly agree that lack of
improper training and the development centers/facilities existed and the remaining 20 % of them
also agreed for this factor.

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4.4 Analysis from qualitative results
It has been analyzed from the paper written by (Wilson, F., Kickul, J., & Marlino, D. 2007).that
In Arab, Employers give priority to males in employment and promotion even if women
command higher merits. Women, despite their interest, lack work opportunities and represent
only 9.7% of the labor force. (Wilson, F., Kickul, J., & Marlino, D. 2007) observes similar
differences in Lebanon which is comparatively a liberal country. Women entrepreneurship in the
Arab world has certain peculiarities such as businesses priority for males, regardless of the
woman being of high merit, therefore, the male dominance prevents the women from doing
business and growing in this area. Women entrepreneurship in the Arab world has certain
peculiarities and demand specific attention too. Employers give priority to males, in employment
and promotion, even if women command higher merits, therefore, they are being discriminated
in the workplace. (Weeks, J. R. (2009) has mentioned that although various sectors of the
economy are open to Omani women for work, their participation is limited and does not exceed
12% of the total effective institutions.
4.5 Conclusion
This chapter has computed and translated the data into numeric code for the exact percentage
using SPSS tool for the descriptive analysis of the variables. The data that was run in SPSS has
been represented in the forms of graphs and charts. The descriptive statistics has helped in
viewing the data in concise form and the percentages of the responses have been depicted along
with the analysis. The qualitative analysis has also been done with the help of the literature that
was studied before starting this project. The literature helped in analyzing that what is the current
situation of women in the Arab countries and the factors that are affecting these women the most.
Chapter 5: Findings
1. From the descriptive statistics, it is found that the widow women are well-educated as
they have done PhD but the experience that they have is less. They are middle aged and
have studied in Oman itself, they have not been to any other country for higher studies.

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2. From the family, self and social domain, it has been found that most of the women are
married, and they are less educated because they have attained education till secondary
level only. The women are young and hence they have comparatively less work
experience. The women are found to stay limited to Oman only for education. This shows
that either they were not allowed to go out of Oman or they were not interested in trying
to study in some other country.
3. It has been found from the above analysis that the factors: - Lack of family support&
orthodoxies, Family obligations and Male dominance affect the women to be
entrepreneurs in Oman because the respondents have agreed that this cause a hindrance
in their development and work.
4. From the descriptive statistics, it is being identified that the hostility of the society
towards the involvement of women in the business still exists and the women are not
getting support from the support to establish their own business. Further, the women in
Oman faces non-cooperation of the male counterparts and this makes them difficult to
work effectively and efficiently in order to fulfill their dreams. Also, the women faces
various difficulties in order to deal with the males at the work place which makes almost
impossible for the women to work productively.
5. From the statistics, it is found that the women in Oman attains weak bargaining positions
at the marketplace and due to this they face various difficulties in order to establish their
business. Furthermore, the lack of experience is also one of the major factor which
creates difficulties for the women in order to work efficiently and effectively. The
descriptive statistics also demonstrated that there is still lack of improper training along
with the development facilities and the centers which creates barrier for the women in
Oman to work effectively and attain sustainable competitive edge in the most competitive
market.
6. From the descriptive statistics, it is being identified that there is lack of proper trainings
for the employees which makes it difficult to provide required training to the employees
in order to maximize their competencies and the skills which would further help in
maximizing the productivity to a great extent. Further, it has been observed that the red-
tape, bribery, etc. are the major issues which are impacting the business to a great extent.
Also, the women entrepreneurs get the minimum support from the government which is

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making them to run their businesses adequately and they are not even getting the
adequate political trainings in order to achieve the desired goals and objectives.
7. From the descriptive statistics, it has been observed that the women in Oman are not
harassed and they get adequate finances in order to establish their businesses. But, the
financial support is not enough in order to run the business according to the desired goals.
The efficiency and the effectiveness of the employees cannot be gained by the financial
support only. Also, the women in Oman believed that the government does not impose
heavy taxes, duties, fees, etc. and their business operations do not get impacted by the
rate of the inflation.
8. From the descriptive statistics, it is found that that the women in Oman didn’t have any
adequate answer for the poor credit facilities for the women as they didn’t know that who
is actually responsible for this factor. Moreover, it has been identified that some of the
women in Oman believed that there are no stringent policies and the regulations in the
country and despite of this factor the women are facing difficulties in establishing their
businesses effectively and efficiently. Therefore, the women in Oman are facing various
barriers in order to run the business by offering adequate training to the employees.
9. From the qualitative analysis, it has been found that entrepreneurship in general has
intrigued researchers over the years, resulting in the development of a number of
theoretical models. It has generally been assumed, however, that the entrepreneur is male.
The females have to be behind the scene in the field of entrepreneurship this is the
similarity that can be seen in every part of the world and one set of researchers even
suggests that entrepreneurship is a way of demonstrating the male driven profession. It
has also been found that the women have been confined to the private sphere of
domesticity, and hence have been denied access to the requisite resources for
entrepreneurial entry including access to capital, business and technical education, and
prior management experience. But, in some part of the world like the South America
many businesses are operated by women entrepreneurs.

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Chapter 6: Conclusion and Recommendations
6.1 Conclusion
From the above analysis of the data and the findings, it can be concluded that the objectives of
the study are satisfied. The first objective ‘to identify barriers affecting entrepreneurs Omani
women in Muscat’ is satisfied from the finding that the factors that affect the Omani women
entrepreneurs are: - Lack of family support& orthodoxies, Family obligations, Male dominance,
Hostility of society towards engagement of Women in businesses, Non-Cooperation of male
counterparts, Difficulty in dealing with males, Weak bargaining position, Harassment, Lack of
experience and Lack of proper trainings. These factors have been identified from the findings
from the qualitative analysis. The second objective ‘to identify if capital is a barrier affecting
Omani women in Muscat to establish the businesses’ is satisfied from the findings as most of the
women agreed that the they get financial support in order to establish the business but they do
not get adequate support from the government like there is lack of proper training along with the
various other things which is making difficult for the women to establish their businesses.
Further, the capital is not a barrier for the Omani women in Muscat to establish their businesses.
But, they are facing issues because of the political pressure and the existence of the red-tape,
bribery, etc. which is making difficult for women to run their business effectively and efficiently.
The third objective ‘to identify if family support is a barrier affecting Omani women in Muscat
to establish their own businesses’ is satisfied from the finding that most of the women to be
entrepreneurs in Oman have agreed that this cause a hindrance in their development and work.
With the lack of support from the family, the women cannot get the motivation to do their own
business. The families discourage the women from working in different ways like they are given
a lot of family responsibilities and they keep on fulfilling their family obligations. They have to
make food for the family; they produce babies and take care of them. Also, they have other
household chores to do and all this work is given to them by the other family members. This
discourages the women from working on their own. Also, the family does not support the women
in fulfilling the needs of capital for their business. Thus, it can be said that lack of family support
is a barrier affecting Omani women in Muscat to establish their own businesses. Furthermore, the
fourth objective ‘to identify if background knowledge is a barrier affecting Omani women in
Muscat to establish their businesses’ is satisfied from the findings as most of the women agreed

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that they faces various challenges in order to establish the business because of lack of
background knowledge. The women stated that they do not get adequate support from the
government and as they do not have any political experience, they face various issues in
establishing their businesses in Muscat. Also, the women do not get adequate political training
which impacts the overall functioning of the business to a great extent and the entrepreneurs are
not able to achieve the sustainable competitive edge as compared to the competitors. Moreover,
the government do not offer any facility for the training centers which makes difficult for the
Omani women to train the staff according to their requirements and as a result they are not able
to establish a business in Muscat. The fifth objective ‘to investigate and analyze the issues faced
by Omani women in Muscat on establishing their businesses’ is satisfied from the findings as
most of the women agreed that they face various challenges like they have weak bargaining
positions in the market, the lack of experience, the Omani women faces non-cooperation from
the males, etc. Further, the women are not even getting adequate support from the government
and there are no appropriate methods and facilities for the training which are making difficult for
the Omani women to establish their businesses and fulfill their goals along with the
maximization of profitability. Therefore, it is important for the government to take some
measures so that the Omani women get adequate support from them and they should not face the
political issues along with the issues of bribery, red tape, etc.
Recommendations
The following recommendations are made for the improvement of the condition of women in
Oman and for encouraging their initiatives for taking up the entrepreneurial activities:
a. Firstly, the women in Oman are not given the opportunity to move ahead and work by the
employers. So, the employers must be encouraged to let the females ender in their
industries and contribute their efforts for the development of the company. The women
have very less experience as compared to the males. They need to gain more experience
so that they are aware of the industries and how things work here. When the women will
become more aware about the industry, the business opportunities and the challenges,

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then they will be able to deal with them in a better way. They will also be able to start
their own company and hence become the entrepreneurs.
b. Secondly, the awareness programs should be run by the government for encouraging the
families of young women that they support the initiatives of prospective women
entrepreneurs. The government should start the loan schemes for the women in Oman
who are planning to start their business. This will help these women in solving their
financial problems and in starting their endeavors. Also, the male dominance will be
reduced when the women will start entering this field and for starting their own ventures,
the scheme of loan will do a great benefit to the women.
c. Thirdly, the government should take the corrective measures in order to encourage and
support the Omani women to establish their business in Muscat and they should not face
the political issues like red tape, bribery, etc. Further, this will help the Omani women to
understand the political aspects of the Muscat and the women will be able to establish
their business with an ease and will be able to run the operations of the business
effectively and efficiently. The government should come up with various programs which
will help the women entrepreneurs to understand the policies and the regulations of the
Muscat to establish the business and run the business without facing any political
challenges.
d. Fourthly, the government should offer adequate training facilities and the centers for the
people so that they can get an opportunity to explore their capabilities and the
competencies to a great extent. This will help the Omani women to train their employees
according to their respective roles and further this will help in increasing the efficiency
and the effectiveness among the employees which will lead to the success of the business
and the women will be able to train the employees constantly in order to improve the
functioning of the operations and the activities of the business in order to attain a
sustainable competitive advantage.
6.2 Limitations
The above analysis could not provide the relations between various factors and the correlation or
the ANNOVA table could not be applied on the data collected. Also, the factors that affected the

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Omani women were identified in the study so a factor analysis could have helped in identifying
the relative importance of various factors. The lack of factor analysis made the study less
impressive and relevant. The scope of the study was limited and the sample size was also small
as compared to the number of women in Oman. Due to the collection of limited data from few
respondents, the study can’t be generalized to the whole group of women in Muscat. The study
covered few provinces in Muscat. Finally, the qualitative analysis was not enough to give the
background to this research in an elaborative manner.
Further research
We will be gathering the information from the existing organizations in the Muscat which are
being run by the women in order to understand the issues which they are facing in running their
business effectively and efficiently. Further, we will also be gathering information from their
financial reports in order to understand that how they overcome the barriers and the challenges
which they faced while establishing their businesses. Moreover, we will gather more information
on the current government policies and the procedures and the policies which were there ten
years ago in order to make the comparison and understand that to what extent the government is
supporting and encouraging the women entrepreneurs in order to establish their own businesses.
Furthermore, we will be gathering the information from the employees of the organizations
through a survey in order to understand that how they are getting training facilities from the
government end in order to improve the skills and the competencies and also to improve the
ability for the decision making. Therefore, this further research will help the Omani women to
establish their businesses effectively and efficiently and from the functioning of the other
companies the women entrepreneurs will be able to deal with the challenges and will work
productively in order to fulfill their long term objectives.

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REFERENCES
Wilson, F., Kickul, J., & Marlino, D. (2007). Gender, entrepreneurial Self‐Efficacy, and
entrepreneurial career intentions: Implications for entrepreneurship Education1.
Entrepreneurship theory and practice, 31(3), 387-406.
Wright, B., & Wallis, S. E. (2015). Using Integrative Propositional Analysis for Evaluating
Entrepreneurship Theories. SAGE Open, 5(3), 2158244015604190.Management, 23(4), 6-12.
Vol. 17 No. 3. (pp. 256-268). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Weeks, J. R. (2009). Women business owners in the Middle East and North Africa: a five-
country research study. International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, 1(1), 77-85.