ABSTRACT
Women entrepreneurship is inextricably linked to context as it offers supports and hindrances to women entrepreneurs and their enterprises. This chapter examined the effectiveness and the interrelationships between formal and informal institutional contexts within the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) regions. The informal institutional contexts have a stronger impact on women entrepreneurship than formal institutions that are described as weak and ineffective. The formal and informal institutional contexts shape one another in influencing women's entrepreneurship in the SSA region. The informal institutional contexts have a more significant influence on the formal institutional contexts which is mainly ineffective and oftentimes non-existent. Women entrepreneurs in the SSA region possess a reverse effect on the formal institutional contexts especially through their participation in policy developments and trade union activism. Women entrepreneurs and their enterprise maintain inconsequential influence on the informal institutions that are mainly exogenous forces. However, women entrepreneurs are still able to indirectly mitigate the adverse influence of the informal institutions through the formal institutional context (including policies). Theoretical and practical implications for women entrepreneurship research and policy development initiatives are offered.
