ABSTRACT
Introduction In the Ukraine, women-owned businesses constitute a significant part of small business sector. In spite of the growing role of women’s participation in business, little is known about female entrepreneurs. The novelty of the phenomenon of female entrepreneurship in transition economies is the reason why it did not receive much attention of SME researchers. The more so, descriptive studies performed in the country did not aim to compare female and male entrepreneurs to identify differences in their personal characteristics, business goals and performance, barriers to business start-up and development, perceptions of business environment. This chapter is an attempt to fill the gap by describing research results of a study,1 which concentrated on female entrepreneurship in a transition environment. The following issues, popular in the literature on female entrepreneurship, will be discussed: • Are female entrepreneurs the same or different from their male counterparts in
terms of personal characteristics and characteristics of their businesses? • Are there any gender differences in business start-up, motivations and business
development? • Is there any impact of gender on finance related issues? • Are female and male networks similar? • Are women more or less successful with regard to business performance?
