Capital Factors Influencing Rural, Regional and Remote Women’s Entrepreneurship Development: An Australian Perspective

Abstract

Insight into the challenges for women entrepreneurship engagement is significantly lacking in the context of Rural, Regional and Remote (RRR) communities. Evidence suggests that a deeper understanding of the role of capital in entrepreneurship engagement for RRR women may shed light on some of the complex issues in this sphere. This paper investigates the impact of economic, social, and cultural capital on RRR women’s entrepreneurship activities. The study surveyed 188 women entrepreneurs located in RRR locations in Queensland, Australia and confirmed the importance of economic, social, and cultural capital, in facilitating and enabling RRR women to engage in entrepreneurial activities. The results further highlighted that regardless of the volume of objectified and institutionalised cultural capital accumulated by these women, accumulation of social capital remained a strong driver for engagement preferences and success indicators. We suggest that this is due to the deeply entrenched values and behaviours relating to the critical formation and maintenance of networks as a survival mechanism when living in RRR locations in Australia. The results of this study provide a deeper understanding of the entrepreneurial practices, circumstances and attitudes of RRR women. Further, the novel application of Bourdieu’s theory of capital in this quantitative study exploring the role of capital factors for RRR women provides a platform for engaging discourse amongst entrepreneurial researchers. The findings will aid governments and policy makers in the development of programs designed to stimulate entrepreneurial engagement for women in rural, regional and remote contexts.