Beyond barriers: capability development and contextual influences on Women’s entrepreneurship in Indonesia

Purpose Entrepreneurship has become an important mechanism for addressing societal challenges, particularly in developing economies. Women’s involvement in entrepreneurship has received increasing attention, given the distinct challenges and opportunities they encounter in this field. Drawing on the capability approach, Freirean praxis and feminist economics, this study examines how higher education entrepreneurship programmes support women in developing entrepreneurial capabilities within contexts characterised by patriarchal family structures, care responsibilities and access to resources. It asks: how do higher education entrepreneurship programmes contribute to women’s entrepreneurial capability development and conversion within gendered contexts of Indonesia? Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a qualitative approach utilising semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 42 female students and graduates, nine lecturers, and eight decision-makers engaged in entrepreneurship education programmes at three Indonesian universities based in Central Sulawesi and East Java. Thematic analysis of these data identified three themes: (1) balancing family and entrepreneurial responsibility, (2) creating opportunities through entrepreneurship and (3) experienced Higher Education Institution (HEI) support and programme needs. These themes were subsequently interpreted through the dimensions of experiencing, navigating and transforming. Findings The thematic findings are explored with regard to the varied factors that drive women’s entrepreneurship in Indonesia, including cultural barriers, negotiating family hierarchy and developing capabilities for pursuing entrepreneurship that converge into three non-linear dimensions: experiencing, navigating and transforming. It shows that higher education institutions can function as gendered capability-conversion spaces by providing resources and opportunities that can contribute to women’s entrepreneurial capability development, while this process remains shaped by gendered structural constraints and wider social and entrepreneurial experiences. Participants’ experiences suggest that the conversion of educational resources into entrepreneurial capabilities is contingent upon family relationships, institutional support and wider socio-cultural conditions rather than education alone. Originality/value This research advances women’s entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education scholarship by offering a contextualised perspective demonstrating that women’s entrepreneurial experiences are fundamentally shaped by the interplay of capabilities, structural inequalities and unpaid care work, which together constrain agency. Rather than conceptualising higher education institutions primarily as sites for transmitting entrepreneurial knowledge, the study reconceptualises them as gendered capability-conversion spaces. The experiencing–navigating–transforming dimensions extend capability-based understandings by explaining how women interpret, negotiate and mobilise entrepreneurial capabilities within structurally unequal contexts, providing a contextualised theoretical explanation of entrepreneurial capability development in Indonesia.