ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a multi-dimensional analysis that not only addresses the difficulties and opportunities experienced by minority women business owners, but also investigates how gender and minority status pertain to the entrepreneurial decisions. Thirty years ago, Muhammad Yunus, a university professor, founded the Grameen Bank. In Yunus's words, Grameen bank "reversed conventional banking practice by removing the need for collateral and created a banking system based on mutual trust". His goal was ambitious, but simple: to eradicate world poverty. But seeing the deprivation and human suffering in the villages of Bangladesh made Yunus doubt some of the basic assumptions behind "the elegant theories of economics" he was teaching in the university classroom. Yunus would eventually provide a passionate critique encompassing economic theory, free-market capitalism, and conventional banking practices. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
