Motivational factors affecting entrepreneurial decision: a comparison between Bulgarian and Serbian women entrepreneurs

Purpose: This study identifies the critical factors that motivate women to launch their own businesses in transition countries in general and Serbia versus Bulgaria in particular. Pinpointing the aforementioned factors further enables us to draw inferrences on the overall health of female enterpreneurship in the two countries and advocate future steps needed for full-fledged development of start-ups owned and/or chaired by ladies, since female enterpreneurship appears to contain still largely untapped potential across the board. Approach: This research is levied from two country specific questionnaires filled by randomly chosen women out of carefully selected pools of female enterpreneurs in Bulgaria and Serbia. Within predefined age groups, results from the two samples were fed to produce descriptive statistics via mean and standard deviation analysis, according to Likert's five point scale methodology. Findings: Based on this research, for the Bulgarian sample, we found that the leading motives of women entrepreneurs cover the presence of abilities and talent, acceptance of freedom and independence as a value of particular importance, control over one's own life and need for security via fulfilling professional aspirations. Quite to the contrary, for the Serbian sample, we concluded that the main motive for women to enter business is related to their inability to find a job. Namely, their startups are necessity rather than opportunity- or skill-driven ventures. In conclusion, we are concerned both with the grass-roots of such finding and with policy efforts to be advised in order to improve the participation, the quality as well as the GDP impact of female entrepreneurship in the countries under investigation.