Marketing management and optimism of Afghan female entrepreneurs

Abstract

For the present generation of entrepreneurs, the operating environment in Afghanistan has been among the most tenuous in the world. Numerous regime changes, civil unrest, and war have created tremendous uncertainty, making civilian business planning difficult. These challenges incrementally impact female entrepreneurs. Relying on proprietary survey data from female entrepreneurs in five Afghan provinces, we investigate the relationship between one aspect of entrepreneurial psychological capital – optimism regarding enterprise success of Afghan female entrepreneurs – and aspects of the marketing function. The results of this preliminary analysis show that mean and median optimism, an important personality feature underlying the psychological capital of entrepreneurs, is extremely low among female Afghan entrepreneurs. Marketing focus, perceived skill at marketing planning, marketing self-reliance, and orientation to the outside world were examined. Findings show that a focus on marketing positively and significantly impacts reported optimism by female Afghan entrepreneurs, as do marketing planning efforts. However, self-reliance and orientation towards the outside world do not appear to impact the perceived success of the entrepreneurial venture. While the subject of optimism of female entrepreneurs remains insufficiently developed, our results have significant relevance for economic development policymakers, non-governmental organizations, and entrepreneurs throughout the developing world.