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Rohana Yusof
School of Social Development, Universiti Utara, Malaysia

'Social-cultural Traits and Entrepreneurship Among Muslim Rural Businesswomen in Malaysia: An Analysis from the Feminist Perspective'

This study attempts to provide an understanding on the relationship of social-cultural traits and entrepreneurship among Muslim rural businesswomen in Malaysia. The study describes the Muslim rural businesswomen with respect to certain background characteristics, perceptions and behaviours surrounding their lives as businesswomen. Drawing extensively on feminist research and perspectives on researching women's lives, this study has applied the principles of feminist research to 31 Malay rural businesswomen from the District of Pendang, Kedah in Malaysia. An issue for researchers has been the methods used for research on women. Hence, this study provides a discussion of feminist approaches to the study of women, and emphasizes the importance of employing a feminist approach in designing a research methodology for researching women's lives. The paper will provide a contribution to dialogue focusing on the practical application of feminist theory in social research. This study postulates several important findings. First, it is found that conventional conceptual frameworks and theories from Western cultural settings may not be fully applicable in the Malaysian context. Nevertheless, they provide useful reference points for doing research and hence contribute to the development of ideas in framing a theory of the origins of entrepreneurship among rural businesswomen particularly in Malaysia. An important dimension was also discovered in that social-cultural traits, in particular religious values and beliefs, seem to have a significant role in shaping behaviour and business practices. Hence this provides a contribution to knowledge which postulates the argument that aspects of social-cultural traits in relation to rural women are relevant and important when drawing out a framework for the initiation of policies and programmes for entrepreneurship development among women.

Bio: emailed for 31 march

<rohana@uum.edu.my>