Abstract:

The performance of women entrepreneurs in their businesses has become an important area of recent policy and academic debate. Comparatively little rigorous and in-depth research, however, has been undertaken on the issues of gender and business performance, especially in Tunisia. First, this study analyze the relationships among microfinance factors, opportunity for entrepreneurial activity, and women entrepreneurs’ performance, and second, advanced the study by examining opportunity for entrepreneurial activity in mediating the relationship between microfinance factors and women entrepreneurs’ performance among 276 Tunisian women entrepreneurs. Structural equation modeling statistical technique was used to test the proposed theoretical model. The findings revealed that the opportunity for entrepreneurial activity did mediate the relationships between microfinance factors (credit, savings, training and social capital) and women entrepreneurs’ performance in Tunisia. This study also highlights the relationship between microfinance factors, opportunity for entrepreneurial activity and women entrepreneurs’ performance. The microfinance factors in this study have shown to have a very high positive significant influence on opportunity for entrepreneurial activity and also have considerable positive significant effect on women entrepreneurs’ performance.