Determinants of Entrepreneurial Behaviour of Rural Women Farmers in Dairying : An Empirical Study

The entrepreneurial behaviour of rural women farmers engaged in the dairy enterprise is influenced by socio-economic attributes and psychological attributes. Since women financial empowerment is the need of the hour, women engaged in the various entrepreneurial activity is thought utmost significant. The main objective of the study is to understand the determinants of entrepreneurial behaviour of rural women farmers in dairying and suggest the possible policy implications. The snowball sampling method was adopted to directly fill the pre-structured questionnaires from 10 respondents each from four women cooperative societies from four taluks chosen on the basis of a large number of women membership coming under village panchayats. Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) model identified five independent variables- Entrepreneurial Orientation, Decision ability, achievement motivation, information seeking behaviour, and risk tolerance positively contributes in explaining to the model while confidence level and innovativeness are significant but negatively influence the variable. the hypothesis that there is no correlation between independent and dependent variables was rejected. Various policy implications identified and suggested to give more emphasis on women education and training to encourage social participation and decision making. Various stakeholders including the KMF, Dairy Development Board, Micro Finance Institutions are advised to uplift the socio-economic status of women by encouraging their inbuilt entrepreneurial talent to make them socially and economically self-sufficient and achieve self-esteem in the society to contribute to the sustainable development of the country