Women entrepreneurship and village savings: a developing world perspective

Purpose This exploratory study draws upon a phenomenon–theory interface of women entrepreneurship and the concept of village savings to develop a continuum of the financial intermediation banking theory. It foregrounds this theoretical extension at the intersection of women's entrepreneurship financing processes, using a developing world setup and retrospective narratives of women entrepreneurs. Design/methodology/approach The research utilises data generated from in–depth interviews involving forty (40) women entrepreneurs in a developing world setup. A research guide comprising semi-structured questions was used to allow participants to recount, as fully as possible, their lived experiences in social settings featuring village saving schemes. The Gioia methodology was adopted for data analysis. Unlike basic thematic analysis, Gioia's data structure, comprising first-order codes, second-order codes and aggregated dimensions, enhanced the rigour in analysing, synthesising and interpreting the stories told by the participants. Findings The findings reveal how women entrepreneurs, involuntarily excluded from participating in modern economics due to gender biases about their societal roles and responsibilities, reconfigured the very mechanisms that constrained their economic and social freedoms to establish village saving schemes as a solution to their financial access challenges. Furthermore, they show how these entrepreneurs coalesced, self-organised and self-managed to enable their saving schemes to function. The relationships they establish were influenced by prosocial acts of solidarity, belonging and togetherness with affiliation to these schemes based on family connections, kinship ties and long-standing personal friendships. Originality/value The originality of this study lies in the contextualised theoretical perspectives and explanations it develops to decipher the subtle social and economic interactions interwoven in the complex local, cultural and social systems of a classical village savings model. Its contextually grounded approach has value. It transcends empirical methods that scholars use to look beyond sample-wide averages to explore the nuances hidden beneath the surface of economic and social interactions in women's entrepreneurship in the developing world.