Factors Contributing Towards Failure of Women Owned Enterprises in Tanzania

This is a comparative study, which attempts to examine factors contributing towards failure of women owned enterprises in Tanzania with special reference to Dar es salaam region. The study focuses on small business and therefore they form the unit of analysis for this study. Both men and women entrepreneurs were interviewed. Specifically the study attempted to examine the impact of prior feasibility studies, education level and cultural constraints on business performance. These were the independent variables. The dependent variable was business performance whereby profitability was used to measure this aspect. Findings of this study reveal that, a greater proportion of women does not conduct prior feasibility studies with respect to supplier compared to men. Thus, this may have a negative impact on their performance. Also women perform many domestic roles. Which are not performed by men, these responsibilities reduce the time they can spend on their businesses. Further more, even their education levels are generally lower than that of their male counterparts. The main recommendation is that different strategies can be formulated to help women on how to conduct prior feasibility studies in order to improve the quality of their business performance. Other recommendations are training/ education with much emphasis on business training and the society must be sensitized on the issue of sharing domestic/household duties in order to remove cultural barriers. Other barriers encountered by respondent during establishment of their businesses were corruption, insufficient funds for running their businesses, lack of sufficient customers, shortage of suitable locations and high tax rates.