Abstract:
In developing countries like Ethiopia, the contribution of women entrepreneurs involved in small
business is significant. With same expectation, a number of small businesses have been started by
women in Jimma town.However, some have liquidated and died out while others still continue
staggering becausetheir performance is determined by many multifaceted factors associated to the
person, the business, and external to the business. This study was aimed to examine external factors
affecting their performance in Jimma Town. Specifically, the factors that were taken into
consideration were economic, social, legal, and support. The study was framed in the form of both
descriptive and explanatory research design. Both primary and secondary data were used. The
source of primary data was 340 sampled women entrepreneurs. This sample size was statistically
determined and stratified into manufacturing, urban agriculture, construction, trade, and service
sectors. The final selection was done using systematic random sampling from the given sample
frame. To analyze the data both descriptive and inferential statistics with the support of Statistical
Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS version 20) were used. Concerning descriptive statistics,
frequency and percentage were applied. As forinferential statistics, crude odds ratio (COR) for
logistic regression was computed. The findings show that limited support in terms of economic
factors like loan arrangement, access to market, information and inflations determine
entrepreneurial performance. Social factors such as social acceptability, prejudice or social bias,
attitude and gender roles also determine the performance of women entrepreneurs. Hence in order
to enhance the performance of women entrepreneurs in MSEs, government organizations and other
concerned bodies should facilitate better economic and social conditions in the city for women
entrepreneurs to operate to the best their capacity and thereby contribute not only to the livelihood
of themselves but also to the economic development of the city and the country at large.
