Public incubation for rural women entrepreneurship in Japan to help close the opportunity gap: a review of current practices and emerging challenges

• In Event: Innovative Citizen and Volunteer Support Systems

Abstract

Many studies have examined entrepreneurship support for rural women in developing countries (Hernandez et al. 2012, Li et al. 2019, Vossenberg 2013). However, to the best of my knowledge, there are almost no studies on entrepreneurship support for rural women in developed countries. Although Japan is classified as a developed country, it is almost at the bottom of the world in the gender gap index (World Economic Forum, 2023), and it cannot be said that Japan is a comfortable society for women. Given the declining birth rate and aging population, the sustainability of Japanese society is critical. In particular, the trend of women moving out of rural areas, where feudalism still prevails and jobs are scarce, to urban areas continues to intensify, and depopulation in rural areas is a serious problem. Therefore, support for women entrepreneurs in rural areas is indispensable for improving regional sustainability. However, because of the relatively small size of funds and slow growth, private sector entrepreneurship support organizations and financial institutions are hesitant to support rural women entrepreneurs, resulting in difficulties in obtaining funding and other resources, and various opportunity gaps compared to male entrepreneurs (FSA, 2022). The purpose of this paper is to propose the concept of Public Incubation, in which the local government performs incubation as a public policy, with the aim of correcting the opportunity gap. The research questions were as follows: (1) What is the difference between men’s entrepreneurship and women’s entrepreneurship? (2) What are the differences between urban and rural entrepreneurship? (3) What is the difference between private and public incubation? (4) How is the public incubation conducted? (5) Why is public incubation important for helping close the opportunity gap? The research paradigm used was interpretivism. The methods would include a process framework to support women entrepreneurs through the following approaches:
1. Knowledge Management
2. Risk Management
3. Launching pre-entrepreneur community
4. Providing entrepreneurship education
5. Certificating women entrepreneurs
6. Creating public branding
7. Facilitating rural women entrepreneurs flourishing
8. New women entrepreneurs join to help pre-entrepreneurs.
The results showed the following: increased self-esteem among the women entrepreneur community, understanding that starting a business is nothing special is shared, entrepreneurship is an option to break out of a stuck life, and other outcomes. In this study, I define the objective of Public Incubation to help close the opportunity gap. I also introduce how Public Incubation can be implemented and how it can be successful for rural women entrepreneurs who have traditionally lacked opportunities to receive incubation support from the private sector. This study is based on my experience in Iida City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, a rural city located in the mountains of Japan. Unlike the more active women in big cities such as Tokyo and Osaka, this paper elucidates the lessons learned from the experience of supporting the entrepreneurship of rural women who are shy and lack access to resources. I hope this will be a useful contribution to entrepreneurship researchers and public policymakers in many developed and developing countries.

References

Financial Services Agency, The Japanese Government. (2022). Proposal to Solve Gender Diversity Issues in Startup Ecosystems.
Hernandez, L., Nunn, N., & Warnecke, T. (2012). Female entrepreneurship in China: opportunity-or necessity-based?. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 15(4), 411-434.
Li, C., Ahmed, N., & Qalati, S. A. (2019). Impact of gender-specific causes on women entrepreneurship: An opportunity structure for entrepreneurial women in rural areas. Journal of Entrepreneurship & Organization Managemen, 8(1), 1-9.
Vossenberg, S. (2013). Women Entrepreneurship Promotion in Developing Countries: What explains the gender gap in entrepreneurship and how to close it. Maastricht School of Management Working Paper Series, 8(1), 1-27.
World Economic Forum. (2023). Global Gender Gap Report.

Author

• Yutaka Tanabe, Game Changer Institute