Publication Date
7-1-2015
Abstract
This study was motivated by the fact that despite Uganda having mobile phone service penetration of as much as 80% of its population, studies of mobile phone usage among women entrepreneurs in developing countries are still rare. Relatively little is known about women’s entrepreneurship and the mobile phone usage. Grounded in Habermas’ Critical Social Theory (CST), this paper applies the theory of emancipation to understand the usage of mobile phones among women entrepreneurs in urban and rural areas of Uganda. To select participants in the study, multi-stage and purposive sampling were used. Data was collected through questionnaire and focus group discussions and was analyzed using SPSS. The findings revealed that majority of rural and urban women were micro entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs gained especially in mainstream operations like marketing and sales, information inflow, customer service delivery, increased business processes and profits, which facilitated increased productivity and enterprise transformation. The study came to conclude that the mobile phone is an economic tool that liberates women entrepreneurs from poverty and empowers them with knowledge.
