Black women's entrepreneurship in the formal sector of the South African economy: An exploration of experiences within institutions

This paper explores the experiences and challenges faced by Black women entrepreneurs in the formal sector of the economy in South Africa.The literature on women’s entrepreneurship is currently largely Western centric, most often focused on Western contexts and applying Western theorising (deVita, et al. 2013; Ojediran and Anderson, 2020). While there is research in the global south emerging, where there has been engagement with the African experience particularly, almost always, the focus is on impoverished, survivalist enterprise in the informal economy (Adom, 2014; Bango et al. 2018; Correa et al. 2022). Consequently, we know little about the practices and challenges of women in the formal sector in Africa and throughout the global south. The paper engages with this gap and presents findings from an empirical study of 11 established female entrepreneurs operating in the formal sector in South Africa,including in industries such as financial and other services and in the more male-dominated mining and manufacturing (Compcom, 2023).Specifically, drawing from institutional theory, the research explores the experiences of these women, including the challenges perceived within their institutional environment.