Empowering Women Entrepreneurs in Digital Age: Online Community Approach

Abstract

Women Entrepreneurs are a valuable resource that has an abundant potential to flourish in the digital age. Social media platforms are considered a prominent mode of today’s online businesses. However, according to recent statistics, only 10% of online businesses handled by women entrepreneurs have continued successfully for more than a year. As per literature, this was primarily influenced by the lack of technological and managerial skills required. Thus, this study focuses on designing and developing an online community-based platform to create a peer support mechanism to collaborate and learn how to use social media platforms for business purposes. The key focusing areas were the current usage of social media platforms in business, and perceived challenges, technology acceptance, and design insights on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) supported intervention to bridge the identified gaps. Since the study is primarily exploratory, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model was used. Data was gathered from a representative sample of women entrepreneurs in the Colombo district. The results indicated that over 80% of the respondents use social media for different business purposes. The evaluations indicated that performance expectancy and effort expectancy significantly influence the intention of women entrepreneurs to use the ICT based solutions. Thus, a web-based prototype was proposed as a solution to develop online communities for women entrepreneurs to collaborate and learn. The findings of the study would contribute to the future design and development of ICT supported interventions to empower women toward successful business ventures.