Constraints and opportunities facing women entrepreneurs in developing countries : A relational perspective

Purpose – This purpose of the paper to examine the interplay of constraints and opportunities affecting female entrepreneurship in developing countries. The paper integrates salient micro‐ and macro‐level perspectives and provides a rounded account of opportunities and constraints as part of a holistic interdependent system. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts an integrative multi‐level research design and an interpretive research methodology, capitalizing on in‐depth interviews with ten women entrepreneurs to explore their perceptions and interpretations of constraints and opportunities facing female entrepreneurship in the Lebanese context. Findings – The findings presented in this paper clearly illustrate the relevance of micro‐, meso‐, and macro‐level factors in entrepreneurship research and the usefulness of integrating multiple lens and units of analysis to capture the complexity of the women entrepreneurship experience in any particular context. Originality/value – The value added of this research lies in adapting a framework recently popularized in the context of diversity management for use in entrepreneurship research, helping to capture in turn the dynamic interplay of multiple levels of analysis and objective/subjective factors influencing female entrepreneurship.