Abstract:
The focus of this paper is to view and examine the various strategic management styles used
by Sri Lankan women entrepreneurs. The paper further explores women entrepreneurs in Sri
Lanka to understand the impact created upon them on empowering women. Are there
different management styles used by the women entrepreneurs of Sri Lanka? Have the
women entrepreneurs made an impact on the development of Sri Lanka? What is the
importance of women entrepreneurship on empowering females in Sri Lanka? These were the
questions that this paper attempts to answer. In many parts of Sri Lanka women play a
crucially important role in social and economic production. However, the constraints of
poverty, combined with poor infrastructure and minimal resources, limit entrepreneurial
possibilities. Nonetheless, Sri Lankan women entrepreneurs use enterprise to try to improve
their lives. There is a thought that significant differences exist in the general entrepreneurial
behaviour and performance between men and women, as well as between women from the
same region and from other localities. This paper is aimed at increasing understanding on
whether these differences are brought about by the cultural and social attributes, rather than
physical and psychological differences. In summary the outcomes of this paper identify the
intrinsic motivator for women entrepreneurs is to provide for their family, to give their
children a better life than what they experienced, and to escape the entrapments of poverty.
Stereotyping and discrimination combined with lack of capital and access to micro-credit
were seen as the major inhibitors to business success of the women entrepreneurs.
Therefore the paper has not only identified the unique management styles used by the women
entrepreneurs of Sri Lanka but has found the various ways the women are empowered
through the women entrepreneurship and how it affects the development of Sri Lanka.
