Paper Title
Towards A Supportive Ecosystem for Entrepreneurship in Egypt & Saudi Arabia Focusing on Women's Entrepreneurship
Abstract
Introduction: Entrepreneurship plays a significant role as one of leading engines of economic growth in Arab Country such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Entrepreneurship is most important in increasing innovation, productivity growth, creating new jobs and poverty alleviation. Although government in both country are exerting a lot of efforts to boost entrepreneurship by simplifying procedures, lowering registrations fees and reducing tax burden , Entrepreneurship still faces many obstacles and challenges and the Entrepreneurship environment needs to be more supportive to encourage young people to establish their small and medium projects especially the Women's Entrepreneurship is a very promising opportunity to contribute effectively in achieving sustainable development . Although women entrepreneurs around the world suffer from numerous problems like, access to financing and lack of business experience, attracting customers, access to technology, the challenges for women entrepreneurs may be more severe in developing countries, like Saudi Arabia. in Saudi Arabia the traditional cultural norms have tended to impede Saudi women's engagement in entrepreneurship. However, as the Kingdom looks forward to more women's participation in the labor market, especially with Vision 2030, more attention is being paid to supporting women entrepreneurs. they are seeing female entrepreneurship as a way to strengthen both the family unit and the economy. So the government recognize that owing a business can be a way for women to contribute to the country's economy .So, the government has set up several centers and banks to help entrepreneurs and offers financial support to young female and male entrepreneurs.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the concept of entrepreneurship and its important, characteristics and motives of entrepreneurs and to explain the components and characteristics of the environment for entrepreneurship in Arab country emphasizing on Egypt and Saudi Arabia to get the light on the opportunities and challenges that hinder and prevent entrepreneurship growth .Finally present a suggested framework for the supportive environment of entrepreneurship in both of Egypt& Saudi Arabia, particularly focusing on education and training as one of the main fundamental elements to develop entrepreneurship and formation of entrepreneurship culture in the country as Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report 2016.
The importance of paper comes from the importance of spreading the idea of entrepreneurship all over the world and its vital role in Arab country economy to promote economic development across different sectors by increasing GNP, encouraging investment and creation job opportunities.
Paper Assumption: Providing good, enabling and supportive Ecosystem for Entrepreneurship contribute to development and growth the concept of Entrepreneurship especially by the creation of an Entrepreneurship culture in Arab country.
Design/Methodology: This paper uses analytical descriptive and induction approach by observing, collecting data about the Entrepreneurship and components of Ecosystem and reviewing all studies on the entrepreneurial environment and the successful experiences of other countries in supporting the entrepreneurial environment to reach to a proposed framework that outlines the environment supporting entrepreneurship with highlighting especially on education and training and Women 's entrepreneurship.
Findings: The main result of this paper is that it illustrates the components of the ecosystem of entrepreneurship and its most important challenges and proposes a model for providing a supportive entrepreneurship ecosystem to increase its contribution in the economy.
Scope and limitations: This paper aims to investigate the entrepreneurship ecosystem by focusing on one of the main factors to entrepreneurship and Women's entrepreneurship.
Practical Implications: This paper is helpful for decision and policy makers to focus more on creating a good entrepreneurship ecosystem that help young people especially women to engage in self-employment activities which can be beneficial to the economy, growth and sustainable development in these countries.
Keywords - Entrepreneurship, Ecosystem for Entrepreneurship, Women's Entrepreneurship