Challenges of Stakeholder Engagement for Women Entrepreneurship—A Qualitative Study on Women Entrepreneurs in India

Stakeholder engagement supports entrepreneurship, organizational development, competitive advantage, and innovation. Stakeholder management through engagement is getting more prominence as sustainability, new business models, technological developments, and more entrepreneurial involvement are making a shift from a mere transactional context to a relationship and communal approach where co-creation and collaboration are essential for business sustainability. Women entrepreneurship is integral to the Indian economy for job creation, skill enhancement, social upliftment, community betterment, and better living standards for citizens and the community. The research aims to study the stakeholder engagement process and its challenges for women entrepreneurs for co-creation, collaboration, and business sustainability. It uses qualitative research wherein a structured questionnaire was used while interviewing to collect data on women entrepreneurs. It is concluded that women entrepreneurs primarily identified some critical stakeholders for their business: customers, vendors, and employees who support the overall achievement of their entrepreneurial goals involving revenue. Women entrepreneurs needed a coherent approach to engage with their identified stakeholders. Their responses and strategies are contextually based on the awareness and need of decision makers, thus a response to the priority at that particular time, including needed investor communication for engagement. The research uses stakeholder theory and stakeholder mapping framework to suggest women's entrepreneurial initiatives by further enhanced through identification, planning, and strategizing to engage with different stakeholders for greater engagement, innovation, opportunities, and entrepreneurial achievement of objectives. Its sample size and measurement objectives limit the study, and researchers can further use it to understand stakeholder engagement to achieve sustainable development goals.