The mediating effect of entrepreneurial self-efficacy on business experience and performance of women-owned enterprises

This study aims to investigate the mediating effect of entrepreneurial self-efficacy on the relationship between the business experience and performance of women-owned enterprises in South Africa. A quantitative methodology with random sampling was employed. Qualtrics was used to administer the online questionnaire; a sample size of 258 was attained to test the study hypotheses. This cross-sectional study design followed recommendations from scholars on a minimum of 100 as an adequate sample size for regression analysis. Hierarchical regression and mediation analysis were employed to analyze the primary data collected from women entrepreneurs in South Africa.Using ordinal data, a seven-point Likert scale was adopted to operationalize constructs. Out of all the entrepreneurial self-efficacy antecedents and dimensions that were tested, industry experience emerged as the most influential predictor of business performance (β = 0.496*) when mediated by the innovation dimension of entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Although the management dimension of entrepreneurial self-efficacy showed strong predictive power, it did not exhibit significant mediating effects. Consequently, there was only partial mediation of the innovation dimension of entrepreneurial self-efficacy in the relationship between industry experience and business performance. Industry experience and business performance are antecedents and outcomes of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, respectively; they were partially mediated by the innovation dimension of entrepreneurial self-efficacy.