A STUDY ON PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES OF WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN WAYANAD DISTRICT OF KERALA STATE
Women Entrepreneurs are inspiring. An entrepreneur is someone that organizes, manages, and assumes the risk of a business enterprise. Today, more women are breaking free from the traditional, gender-specific roles and venturing into the business world. Not only are they holding high corporate positions but they are also successful women entrepreneurs .The steady rise in female entrepreneurs can be due to many different reasons, most of which share the same rational as their male counterparts—passion for their ideas, the desire to become their own boss, and the need to address philanthropic causes. The educated Indian women have to go a long way to achieve equal rights and position because traditions are deep rooted in Indian society where the sociological set up has been a male dominated one. Despite all the social hurdles, Indian women stand tall from the rest of the crowd and are applauded for their achievements in their respective field. The transformation of social fabric of the Indian society, in terms of increased educational status of women and varied aspirations for better living, necessitated a change in the life style of Indian women. She has competed with man and successfully stood up with him in every walk of life and business is no exception for this. These women leaders are assertive, persuasive and willing to take risks. They managed to survive and succeed in this cut throat competition with their hard work, diligence and perseverance. Women have been successful in breaking their confinement within the limits of their homes by entering into varied kinds of professionals and services women entrepreneurs have proved to be on par with their men counterparts in business acumen and are emerging as smart and dynamic entrepreneurs. Women owned businesses are highly increasing in the economies of almost all countries.
The antecedents of entrepreneurial intention among women entrepreneurs in India
The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of entrepreneurial intention in promoting women entrepreneurship in Indian micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). This study seeks to clarify the construct of entrepreneurial intention and then reports the validation of the entrepreneurial intention instrument.,An instrument has been designed and administered on a sample of 103 respondents across India from women entrepreneurs to understand the entrepreneurial intention by using cluster and snowball sampling. The data has been streamlined and then analyzed using descriptive analysis for validity and reliability checks.,This research was aimed to determine the constructs of entrepreneurial intention. Through data analysis, it has been observed that the reliability coefficients reveal the adequacy of the sample. The Cronbach’s alpha values for all the items in the instrument were found to be greater than or equal to 0.6. Strong correlations were also found between direct and indirect measures of entrepreneurial intention and hence confirmed that all the measures in the instrument were well constructed. Analysis has also explained the relationship between various constructs of entrepreneurial intention by using Pearson’s correlation coefficients. Strong and positive values of correlation explain the existence of the convergent and discriminant validity of the instrument.,The research results obtained from the analysis of reliability and validity tests not only provides the establishment of the relationship among the various constructs but also suggests that the model provides a promising potential to measure entrepreneurial intention. This study will contribute to new knowledge of the conditions of women entrepreneurship from different perspectives by developing and validating an analytic model for promoting the women entrepreneurship in MSMEs of India.,From a government perspective, this model will help in designing training programmes for promoting women entrepreneurship in India. The obtained result also brings significant implications for practice as well as raises a broad future direction for other researchers,Extended SCCT model has recently suggested an inclusive framework of factors affecting the entrepreneurial intention, there is not much attempt made in research using this theory as background for predicting intention in the context of women entrepreneurship. This paper attempts to fill this gap by formulating a conceptual model for measuring entrepreneurial intention among women entrepreneurs by integrating and adapting the constructs of extended social cognitive career theory model and entrepreneurial potential model.
Denitrification of PVA-immobilized denitrifying photosynthetic bacterium, Rhodobacter sphaeroides
Abstract A newly isolated denitrifying strain, Rhodobacter sphaeroides NII2 was immobilized in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) gel, and the properties of the cells in the gel were examined. The immobilized cells had low or almost no denitrification activity, but the cells were activated by incubation in light with culture medium for denitrification containing 0.5% nitrate and no other nitrogen source. Cells grown in the dark were activated by incubation at an earlier stage and to a higher rate than the light-grown cells. The activation was markedly enhanced in the PVA gel with a low cell concentration. The immobilized cells consumed nitrate with a temporary accumulation of NO 2 and evolved nitrogen gas. The immobilized cells could use various organic compounds as electron donors for denitrification. Thus, the immobilized cells were applied to a continuous treatment of synthetic wastewater using an aparatus devised by this laboratory. The results showed an efficient removal of NO 3 -N from the test water.