Business-government relationship for sustainable development of women entrepreneurship: an analysis of the Indian manufacturing sector

Abstract

Women entrepreneurship is an essential driver of the economic growth of the nation. It promotes sustainable business practices and increases women’s participation in economic development. In this regard, government intervention plays a significant role in promoting women entrepreneurship. Thus, this study aims to investigate the impact of government intervention on the sustainable development of women entrepreneurs. This study uses the World Bank Enterprise Survey data set for India to investigate the objective. Using the Likert scale and regression analysis, it is found that women’s participation in entrepreneurship activity in India is much less than that of men. They are mostly interested in doing small business and are unable to get the benefits of government schemes for their business promotion. Regression results show that government support, tax inspection, and informal payment significantly impact the firm's sales, which are led by women entrepreneurs. Moreover, the female-owned enterprises increase their sales much more than the male-owned enterprises. Policymakers and economists should focus more on increasing female entrepreneurship to boost economic productivity. Further, the government should ensure the proper implementation of the government schemes so that women entrepreneurs can get the benefits. Tax rates and tax administration may give some relaxation to women-led enterprises to increase the number of women entrepreneurs for sustainable business practices and reduce gender inequality in business activity.

Full text

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Discover Sustainability
Research
Business‑government relationship forsustainable development
ofwomen entrepreneurship: ananalysis oftheIndian manufacturing
sector
NamitaraniGochhayat1· ShambhuRout2
Received: 25 October 2024 / Accepted: 3 April 2025
© The Author(s) 2025 OPEN
Abstract
Women entrepreneurship is an essential driver of the economic growth of the nation. It promotes sustainable business
practices and increases women’s participation in economic development. In this regard, government intervention plays
a signicant role in promoting women entrepreneurship. Thus, this study aims to investigate the impact of government
intervention on the sustainable development of women entrepreneurs. This study uses the World Bank Enterprise Survey
data set for India to investigate the objective. Using the Likert scale and regression analysis, it is found that women’s
participation in entrepreneurship activity in India is much less than that of men. They are mostly interested in doing
small business and are unable to get the benets of government schemes for their business promotion. Regression
results show that government support, tax inspection, and informal payment signicantly impact the rm’s sales, which
are led by women entrepreneurs. Moreover, the female-owned enterprises increase their sales much more than the
male-owned enterprises. Policymakers and economists should focus more on increasing female entrepreneurship to
boost economic productivity. Further, the government should ensure the proper implementation of the government
schemes so that women entrepreneurs can get the benets. Tax rates and tax administration may give some relaxation
to women-led enterprises to increase the number of women entrepreneurs for sustainable business practices and reduce
gender inequality in business activity.
Keywords Women entrepreneurs· Sustainable development· Business-government relationship· Indian
manufacturing sector
1 Introduction
Entrepreneurship is the engine of growth in both developed and developing countries. In the contemporary world,
it is essential to develop the ecosystem to facilitate dynamic business activities. It can only be done by maintaining
and promoting sustainable entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur starts a new venture, can nd opportunities, and can
develop these opportunities into a protable business [1]. However, sustainable entrepreneurship refers to the situation
where social and economic development occurs in the business activity, keeping the needs of the future and present
generations [2, 3]. One of the major sustainable development goals (SDG) is SDG 5—gender equality. The role of gender
in entrepreneurial activity is a vital segment. Balancing gender parity in business opportunities is essential for improving
* Namitarani Gochhayat, namitaranigochhayat@gmail.com; Shambhu Rout, shambhurout@gmail.com | 1Indian Institute ofTechnology
Bhilai, Bhilai, India. 2Rayagada Autonomous College, Rayagada, India.
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productivity and utilizing human resources to develop the economy. According to Kamberidou [4], the presence of female
members on the company’s board of directors results in more productive decisions because of collective intelligence.
Further, Ali and Shabir [5] showed that sales growth and labor productivity are better in female-owned than male-owned
enterprises.
India is home to around 1.4 billion people and the third largest economy in the world [6, 7]. However, it still has the
traditional patriarchal behavior when it comes to the decision-making part and starting a business. Many women face
family constraints when making business decisions [8]. Promoting female entrepreneurship benets the economy as
females are more risk-averse and have experience in teamwork, communication, and management skills from their
everyday household work [4, 8]. As a result, female entrepreneurs can achieve progressive development in their business
activities. However, female entrepreneurs also face various diculties in running their businesses. Financial constraints
such as access to external credit, micro-credit, and bank nances hinder women entrepreneurs [8–11]. Besides that,
they have domestic work pressure, which constrains them from working eciently for business development [12–14].
The sustainable development of women entrepreneurs is an important rising study that intertwines economic growth,
gender equality, and environmental stewardship. The sustainable development of female entrepreneurs focuses on
women’s empowerment to establish and grow businesses while promoting the country’s long-term economic growth
and social and environmental wellbeing. To create a sustainable business environment, female entrepreneurship needs
to be encouraged to bring gender parity and improve economic development.
In this prospect, government support is inevitable in developing the environment for smooth and sustained female
entrepreneurship. The government’s priority is to formulate favorable policies and programs to exploit the female labor
force available in the country to develop the economy with their ideas and skills [15]. Many studies have evidenced that
nancial help from government bodies and government support in developing businesses is vital to female-owned
enterprises’ success [16–18]. Moreover, some studies also pointed out that government activities like unfavorable
government policies, bureaucratic corruptive practices, and inaccessibility of government schemes are obstacles to
business development [19, 20]. Thus, for the development of women’s entrepreneurship in the country, there should be
an in-depth study on the government’s contribution to promoting female entrepreneurship.
Figure1 shows the interrelationship between a business organization and government. This gure shows that
business organizations abide by the tax law, so they pay taxes (Direct and Indirect) to the government. In return, they get
subsidies and various scheme benets from the government for their business development. On the other hand, business
organizations are also paying an informal form of money to the government sector to get things done in the form of
government contracts, licenses, and permits for various work. Against this backdrop, some sustainable entrepreneurship
development gets compromised to bring gender equality.
From the above discussion and literature, we have found a lack of empirical evidence on business-government
relations, particularly for women entrepreneurs. To ll this gap in the literature, this paper raised two fundamental
questions related to women entrepreneurs: rst, what is the share of women entrepreneurs in sectors other than the
service sector? Second, what is the impact of government intervention on the sustainable promotion of women’s
entrepreneurship? To answer these two questions, this study aims to analyze the impact of government intervention
on women entrepreneurship in the Indian manufacturing sector. The manufacturing sector is chosen for this study as the
literature suggests this sector has less representation of female entrepreneurs, and very few studies have been conducted
Fig. 1 Interrelationship
between Government and
Business Organisation
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Research
on the women entrepreneurs working there. This paper bridges the literature gap by exploring women’s participation
in the manufacturing sector and their sustainability.
Further, this paper attempts to study whether government support helps in the development of women
entrepreneurs. The novelty of this paper is that it emphasizes the government-business relationship for sustainable
women entrepreneurship. Moreover, it analyses the Indian manufacturing sector using a more prominent and relatively
new data set from the World Bank. This may have a signicant contribution to the gender and management literature.
Along with this, this study will be benecial for policy formulation to empower women in society and the corporate sector.
2 Signicance ofthestudy
This study has multidimensional implications for the development of women’s entrepreneurship, particularly in the
manufacturing sector. This study is one of its kind in the literature, empirically exploring the importance of government
intervention in women’s entrepreneurship promotion and development. Additionally, this study explores the status of
women entrepreneurs in the Indian economy with the help of an extensive database. This study presents an intensive
look into the government’s eectiveness in business growth. The importance of tax inspection, corruption (Informal
Payment), and government support are examined in this study for better policy implications.
Further, the gender of top managerial positions and the owner of the rm are also being analysed for entrepreneurial
development. This will help the policy maker and entrepreneur on two fundamental issues: the government’s
accountability towards sustainable entrepreneurship promotion and gender-neutral policy for a sustainable business
environment for all. Secondly, this study will encourage women entrepreneurs to take the proper steps towards their
business development while taking care of government intervention for their business growth. Moreover, women’s
empowerment is a core agenda of the SDG, which can be fascinated by the proper monitoring of the governance system
of empowerment.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Sect.3 presents the literature review, Sect.4 includes the methodology,
Sect.5 shows the result analysis, and Sect.6 represents the discussion and conclusion.
3 Literature review
Theoretically, entrepreneurs are creative innovators, which impels growth and more market competition and generates
wealth and employment for a nation [21]. Entrepreneurship is not apart from the societal rule of law; it aects the
behavior of entrepreneurs and opportunities for entrepreneurs. Hofstede [22] explained that a society’s cultural values
will enforce a social group’s behavior through the society’s political and technological institutions of the society. This
societal behavior will serve as a platform for entrepreneurial activity among the genders [23]. Traditionally, women are
suppressed in economic opportunity, law, education, and social power [24]. This enroots the women’s backwardness in
entrepreneurial activity. However, women have the potential power to enlarge their contribution to economic progress
other than traditional domestic work. As Minniti and Naudé [25] stated, women entrepreneurs are the untapped source of
economic growth in developing countries. Gender sensitization of entrepreneurial activity is crucial after the enforcement
of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), under which gender equality is a predominant objective. Relating
sustainability to gender is done in many studies [26, 27]. Sustainable entrepreneurship relates to social, environmental,
and business activities that contribute to the development of the economy. Within that branch of study, sustainable
women entrepreneurship is an emerging area of research [27]. Thus, this study extensively focused on women’s
entrepreneurship and their sustainability. The literature we gathered has three dimensions: female entrepreneurship,
sustainable development, and obstacles to female entrepreneurs.
Female entrepreneurship plays a signicant role in achieving economic diversication and sustainable economic
development [28, 29]. Ramya etal. [30] found that in India, women’s businesses help the economy, reduce poverty, and
have a greater chance of shaping the economy. Agrawal etal. [31] observed that personal, societal, and environmental
variables have impacted the development of entrepreneurial learning and abilities, which are essential for the success
of women social entrepreneurs. Further, the literature suggests that women entrepreneurs prefer the service sector over
other sectors to start their ventures [15]. Most women entrepreneurs established new ventures rather than inheritance
and acquisition [32]. Women mostly enter entrepreneurship at a young age (Normally 25 to 35) and prefer to open a
micro or small enterprise [33, 34]. However, Senapati etal. [35] investigated 256 women entrepreneurs in the state of
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Odisha. They found that saving, expenditure, physical asset value, enterprise decision-making, and self-employment
generation signicantly impact the empowerment of women entrepreneurs.
From the sustainable entrepreneurship prospect, studies have found that the involvement of women in entrepreneurial
activity improves sustainable economic growth, and women’s social and educational wellbeing is established after
successful entrepreneurship training [36]. In this respect, Mashapure etal. [23] have found that market information,
adequate knowledge, and skills are necessary to sustain women’s entrepreneurship. However, another study in Romania
explored that internal forces like strength and weakness are more responsible for sustainable female entrepreneurship
than the external forces of opportunity and threats [37]. Further, Fernandez etal. [27] argued that awareness of women is
a more important determinant for sustainable women entrepreneurship. Moreover, government intervention is needed
to set gender-moderated policies to empower women in digitization, e-commerce, and information and communication
technology for sustainable entrepreneurship development.
Women entrepreneurs also face various obstacles in their business activities. These obstacles are related to
societal pressure, entrepreneurial ability, and sustainability in the business environment [4, 8, 15]. Similarly, despite
various government eorts, women entrepreneurs are more disadvantaged than men in accessing formal credit [18].
Another problem with women entrepreneurs is that they cannot convert their prots back into investments to grow
their businesses and sometimes have technological backwardness [11]. Among other factors, tax structure, business
information, intelligence, age of the firm, and innovation are the crucial factors that affect women-led business
development [5, 16, 38]. However, social support plays a vital role in participation in entrepreneurial activity [39]. In
terms of sustainability prospects, lack of market information, collateral security, and natural disasters hinder rural
entrepreneurship for sustainable development [23]. In extension, Goutam and Misra [40] conducted a study on India.
They found that lack of balance between family and career obligation, property ownership, self-condence, and
entrepreneurial skills are the major obstacles to developing women’s entrepreneurial activity. Further, the lack of a
centralized system, societal perception, and trust is the main barrier to women’s entrepreneurship [41].
Therefore, from the above literature, it is imbibed that women entrepreneurs face acute problems in their development,
and thus, this matter invites government intervention for sustainable women entrepreneurship.
4 Methodology
4.1 Data
This study uses the World Enterprise Survey data set that was collected and released by the World Bank Group. The
World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data set collects information on various business environments and performance
topics. This survey collects data from dierent countries across the world. The latest data set available for India is the
2022 survey data used in this study. WBES collects data using a stratied random sampling method. The stratication
is carried out by rm size, geographical location, and sector of activity. The sample size is determined by the degree of
stratication of the survey using a 5% and 7.5% precision level with a 90% condence interval. WBES 2022 uses a sample
size of 9376 from India’s manufacturing and service sectors. Four types of rm size are used to stratify the sample—Small
(5–19 employees), Medium (20–99 employees), Large (100–199 employees), and very large (More than 200 employees)
enterprises in this survey. This data set collects information on rm characteristics, infrastructure, sales and supplies,
management practices, competition, innovation, capacity, land and permits, nance, business-government relations,
corruption, labor, and performance. Besides that, WBES 2022, implemented in India, has some extra information, such
as contractual disputes, COVID-19, government support, and a green economy, which are our interests in the study.
Our analysis is vested in the manufacturing sector, and the data set comprises 5417 manufacturing units as the
sample. Out of 5417 samples, 17 samples have been dropped for this study due to insucient information. Our total
sample is 5,400, of which only 341 business establishments have female ownership either in a sole proprietorship or
with a shareholding basis. We made two sets of analyses for this study. First, we analyzed only female-owned enterprises,
for which we have taken the enterprises with more than 50 percent shareholding in the establishment by a female
entrepreneur. Thus, our sample is reduced to 117 business establishments for this study. The reason behind taking only
enterprises with more than 50 percent shareholding by the female is that in this type of business, females have the power
and are considered the owners of the establishment. The sampled 117 establishments comprise 44 small size rms, 40
medium size rms, 23 large size rms, and 10 very large size rms. Second, we have analyzed the same model, including
the gender of the owner of the enterprise as a predictor for rm growth. For this, we have considered all 5400 rms as
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samples, of which 1484 small rms, 1700 medium-sized rms, 998 large-size rms, and 1218 very large-size rms are
present.
4.2 Statistical analysis
This study uses the key variables linked with government (Table1) to analyze the impact of government intervention
on the sustainability of women entrepreneurs. These variables are selected based on their merit in the development of
women’s entrepreneurship.
Based on these variables, we have employed two sets of log-lin regression models as specied below.
Model 1.
This model deals with establishments owned by females only, so we have not included the owner’s gender in this
model as an independent variable.
Model 2.
This model deals with all establishments irrespective of the gender of the rm; thus, we have included the gender of
the owner as an independent variable to determine the role of gender in the rm’s sales.
Further, a Likert scale analysis is employed to describe the study.
5 Result analysis
5.1 Gender composition inentrepreneurship
The sustainable development goal of achieving gender equality in work is important to discuss. Workplace gender
equality is achievable only when the business owner is maintained by gender parity. Government intervention is
inevitable in bringing gender parity to entrepreneurship. India, having the biggest population and demographic
dividend, lacks gender equality in entrepreneurship. Table2 shows the gender composition of entrepreneurship in
dierent sectors, clearly depicting the disparity in female representation in business participation.
The industrial sectors represent a more micro picture of the unequal representation of females in entrepreneurial
activities. Table3 shows that females are signicantly less in the non-metallic and minerals industries, followed by
machinery and equipment. Representation is relatively more in retail services, garment, and textile sectors. Meanwhile,
males dominate almost all industrial sectors.
5.2 Obstacles inentrepreneurship
There are certain obstacles to the development of a business. These obstacles are prominent in the growth of female
entrepreneurs. In this prospect, a Likert scale analysis is collected from the enterprises. This portion shows the signicant
obstacles related to government services for business enterprises, such as tax rate, tax administration, licensing and
permits for business enterprises, political stability, corruption, and courts. The degree of obstacles is in Table4, which
depicts ve scales of obstacles—no, minor, moderate, major, and very severe.
Women entrepreneurs face no obstacles in any such case, but some face problems dealing with political instability
and corruption. However, the tax rate is still a hindrance for women-led enterprises. The court system to give justice is
also an obstacle for about 44 percent of enterprises. Around 19 percent of women enterprises face severe obstacles in
their business activity due to government-related services.
When we compare the diculties of women entrepreneurs with respect to the overall diculties faced by all the
sampled enterprises, it can be seen that women face more obstacles in the form of minor and moderate cases compared
to all rms in terms of percentage. In the case of tax rates, corruption, and licensing, women are more vulnerable. Political
instability is a severe obstacle for women’s enterprises.
lnAS
=
𝛼
+
𝛿1FA
+
𝛿2GTM
+
𝛿3TI
+
𝛿4IP
+
𝛿5GS
+
𝜀
lnAS
=
𝛼
+
𝛿1GO
+
𝛿2FA
+
𝛿3GTM
+
𝛿4TI
+
𝛿5IP
+
𝛿6GS
+
𝜀
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Table 1 Variable description
Variable Description Unit of measure Reason for inclusion
Dependent Variable
Log Annual sales (lnAS) Last year’s annual sales of the establishment where females’ ownership is more
than equal to 50 Percent Rupees Annual sales represent the establishment’s performance
Independent Variable
Gender of the Owner (GO) Gender of the owner of the establishment Female—1 Male—0 The gender of the owner aects rm performance
Firm age (FA) Age of the establishment Year The more the rm ages, the more experience and brand
value of the business increases
Gender TM (GTM) Gender of the top manager of the establishment Female—1
Male—0 gender plays a vital role in business decision
Tax inspection (TI) Inspection by tax ocials last year Yes—1
No—0 Tax inspection makes rms more accountable
Informal Payment (IP) Payment or gift to public ocials for getting things done in government
oces Rupees Informal payment is a burden to the rm, but it can
sometimes help to get things done quickly
Government support
(GS) Establishment Received any government support Yes—1
No -0 Government support enhances business performance
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5.3 Impact ofgovernment intervention onentrepreneurship promotion
Government intervention is inevitable to minimize the obstacles and improve women’s entrepreneurship activity. The
regression model (Table5) shows the impact of governance on the sales of women-led enterprises, as sales represent
the growth of the enterprises. The gender of the enterprise’s top manager does not signicantly impact the enterprise’s
annual sales. In contrast, rm age and inspection by tax ocials signicantly aect sales.
Table 2 Sector-wise gender
composition of entrepreneurs
Source: Author’s estimation
Sector Female Male Total
Manufacturing sector 319 5081 5400
Service Sector 219 3731 3950
Total 538 8812 9350
Table 3 Industrial Sector-
wise gender composition of
entrepreneurs
Authors’ estimation
Industrial sector Gender of Entrepreneurs
Female Male Total
Food 25 519 545
Textiles 36 557 596
Garments 38 506 546
Chemicals & Chemical 34 370 405
Non-metallic mineral 10 501 511
Basic metals 33 486 519
Fabricated metal prod 30 485 518
Machinery & equipment 17 368 391
Motor vehicles 25 347 372
Other manufacturing 71 1047 1120
Construction 15 355 371
Wholesale 33 527 562
Retail 47 989 1037
Hotels 25 349 375
Restaurants 24 543 568
IT & IT Services 26 225 252
Other services 49 638 688
Total 538 8812 9350
Table 4 Obstacles in business
activity due to governance
(Numbers are in percentage)
Numbers in the parenthesis represent the percentage of female entrepreneurs. Source: Author’s
estimation
Obstacles No obstacle Minor obstacle Moderate
obstacle Major obstacle Very
severe
obstacle
Tax rate 44 (41) 17 (26) 20 (12) 14 (18) 5 (3)
Tax administration 45 (44) 17 (18) 18 (21) 16 (15) 4 (1)
Business licensing
and permits 48 (49) 21 (24) 17 (14) 11 (13) 3 (1)
Political instability 48 (50) 21 (23) 14 (10) 11 (9) 7 (7)
Corruption 45 (44) 19 (23) 18 (16) 12 (13) 5 (4)
Courts 60 (56) 15 (24) 14 (13) 9 (7) 2 (1)
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It represents regular verication by the tax department, hinders women-led enterprises in annual sales, and negatively
aects the sales of female-owned enterprises. Receiving government support also has a positive eect on the annual
sales. Enterprises receiving government support can grow their sales up to 2.45 units. On the other hand, informal
payment has the most signicant impact on sales. A rupee spent on informal payment will raise sales to 4.26 percent for
a female-owned rm. However, the overall eect of the model is statistically signicant.
Furthermore, to generalize, we have investigated the role of rm age, gender of the top manager of the rm,
government support, tax inspection, and informal payment on all the sampled establishments irrespective of the gender
of the owner.
However, we have included the gender of the owner of the establishment as an independent variable to see the
gender dierential eect on the sales of the establishment.
The result (Table6) shows that the owner’s gender of the establishment signicantly aects sales. The male owner
is the reference category, and the result indicatesthat rms with female owners experience a 64 percent increase in
sales.. Similarly, if the rm’s top managers are female, sales are projected to rise by71 percent.In addition, government
support also helps to raise the rm’s sales positively. Receiving government supportis associated with a 57 percent
rise in their sales. However, inspection by the tax ocialappear to negatively aect sales, possibily because frequent
verication by the tax department, which could have a disruptive role in the day-to-day business of an establishment.In
contrast, informal payments which is the indicative of corruption do not have asignicant impact on rm’s sales, which
maysuggestthat such practices do not substantially inuence the rm’s overall performance.
The government also helps enterprises by providing various schemes for the direct growth of the enterprises and
the promotion of new ventures. This study has analyzed the benets received from various agship schemes of the
government in India by women-led enterprises for their sustainable development (Fig.2). The overall benet from various
government schemes is only 443 out of 5400 sampled establishments. Among them, 140 enterprises beneted from the
Table 5 Regression Model for
Female Entrepreneurs
*, **, and *** refer to 10%, 5%, and 1% signicance levels, respectively.
Source: Author’s estimation
Variable Coecient Std. Err t P
Firm Age (FA) 0.02* 0.01 1.88 0.075
Gender of TM (GTM) −0.36 0.59 −0.61 0.548
Tax Inspection (TI) −1.32** 0.50 −2.60 0.017
Govt. Support (GS) 2.45** 0.62 3.90 0.001
Informal Payment (IP) 4.26*** 8.00 5.33 0.000
Constant 19.26*** 0.85 22.55 0.000
R-squared 0.67
F statistics 16.35
Prob > F 0.000
Table 6 The role of
government and the gender
of the owner in the rm’s sale
*** refersto 1% signicance levels.
Source: Author’s estimation
Variable Coecient Std. Err t P
Gender of Owner (GO) 0.643*** 0.244 2.63 0.009
Firm Age (FA) 0.008 0.005 1.50 0.133
Gender of TM (GTM) 0.712*** 0.199 3.57 0.000
Tax Inspection (TI) −0.679*** 0.140 −4.82 0.000
Govt. Support (GS) 0.578*** 0.182 3.16 0.002
Informal Payment (IP) 0.038 0.030 1.24 0.214
Constant 18.95*** 0.28 66.47 0.000
R-squared 0.739
F statistics 14.75
Prob > F 0.000
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‘‘cluster scheme,’’ within that, only six establishments headed by women beneted from this scheme. Another agship
scheme, ‘‘restructuring of loans by banks,’’ from which 77 enterprises beneted, and within that, only one female-led
enterprise beneted.
Interestingly, an important entrepreneurship promotion scheme of the government, ‘‘Micro Unit Development and
Renance Agency—MUDRA,’’ has no impressive benets for business establishments. Only 55 establishments have been
beneted from the scheme. An impressive nding is that no women entrepreneurs have beneted from the government’s
agship schemes, such as the MUDRA scheme, CGTMSE credit guarantee scheme, or production-linked incentive scheme.
6 Discussion andconclusion
Gender equality in sustainable entrepreneurship is an important aspect of economic development. In this prospect,
this study aims to check the government intervention in promoting women’s entrepreneurship. From the sampled
enterprises, the number of females owned or having higher shareholding by the female establishments is relatively few
compared to male-led establishments. Sector-wise gender composition shows that female participation is higher in
manufacturing than in the service sector, contradicting Ramadani’s [15] ndings. Moreover, the industrial classication
indicates that women entrepreneurs are more prominent in retail, garment, and textile business. Nevertheless, they still
lack competition in each industrial sector to their counter male entrepreneurs.
Women entrepreneurs face various obstacles in which tax rate, permit and licensing, political instability, and corruption
are more or less aecting their business and work as a hindrance factor, supporting the study by Katekhaye and Magda
[20] and Tiwari and Goel [19]. However, tax inspection and government support help them grow their sales positively for
sustainable business development, as per Maurya and Mohanty [18]. Tiwari and Goel [19] noticed corruption negatively
aects women’s entrepreneurship development. This study evidenced that corruption in the form of an informal
payment to attract government contracts and benets has worked positively in growing the women-led establishment’s
sales, which refers to corruption supporting business growth. The rm’s age and gender of the top manager of the
establishment do not signicantly aect sales of the women’s enterprises, which is an apparent contradiction to Ali and
Shabir [5] and Alene [16]. However, this study found that women entrepreneurs are not a big beneciary of government
schemes solely created for entrepreneurship promotion, supported by Yadav etal. [42]. MUDRA,CGTMSE credit guarantee
scheme and the production-linked incentive scheme are the agship schemes that does not meet the criteria of our
study. A few women entrepreneurs beneted from the ‘‘cluster schemes’’ and ‘‘Other Schemes.’’
Thus, raising the beneciary of government schemes to promote women’s entrepreneurship in India is essential.
Sustainable entrepreneurship can be achieved when an adequate number of female entrepreneurs join the production
process and contribute to the nation’s economic development. In this prospect, a few suggestions would be to create
awareness among the stakeholders about the benets of women’s entrepreneurship and proper skilling of women to start
new ventures. These are making governance more adorable for the development of women entrepreneurs. Relaxation
in tax burdens for women-led establishments can boost business growth.
Fig. 2 Beneciary of various
government schemes in the
manufacturing sector. MUDRA
Micro unit development and
renance agency, CGMTSE
Credit Guarantee Fund
Trust for Micro and Small
Entreprises; RLB Restructuring
of Loans by Banks, Lean Lean
or Zero defect Zero Eect
scheme
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Vol:.(1234567890)
Research
Discover Sustainability (2025) 6:328 | https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-025-01130-y
There are various limitations of the study. First, this study only focuses on the manufacturing sector in India, which
restricts the capacity to generalize the results of other sectors where the number of female entrepreneurs is higher. The
research results of the study may not apply to sectors outside of the specic sectors with dierent issues. Second, the
most important limitation of the study is the use of secondary data, which may not capture the diculties and challenges
of the sustainable development of female entrepreneurs. So, further research would be focused on primary research for
a better coverage of the study. In addition, this study is solely focused on India, which limits the generalizability of the
ndings to other geographical contexts. Furthermore, future studies may consider female entrepreneurs across countries
to get a better understanding.
Acknowledgements This paper is part of the doctoral research Thesis of Namitarani Gochhayat at IIT Bhilai.We thank Dr. Rekha Ravindran for
her insightful guidance and support. We also thank to the editor and three anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments which helped
us to improve the paper. Finally, the last minute help from Dr. Ravindran is highly appreciated.
Author contributions In the development of this paper, N. G.conceptualized the study, conducted the data analysis andled the writing of the
manuscript. S.R. also led the writing of the rst draft and contributed to the development of the research design, provided critical feedback
on the analysis and also assisted with revisions and editing. Both authors read and approved the nal manuscript.
Data availability Data can be accessed from the World Bank Enterprise Survey by using the login credential. https:// micro data. world bank.
org/ index. php/ catal og/ enter prise_ surve ys? page = 1&country%5B%5D = 102&ps = 15&repo = enterprise_surveys.
Declarations
Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which
permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to
the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modied the licensed material. You
do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party
material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If
material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds
the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http:// creat iveco
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