An analysis of the coping strategies of small-scale female entrepreneurs in Harare, Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT This article analyses the strategies Zimbabwean women use to help them manage their small-scale businesses in Harare. Based on three focus groups as well as semi-structured interviews with the same respondents (n = 21), we consider the advantages and disadvantages conferred on the women by their social capital. The women networked to create rotating credit associations (ROSCAs) to generate working capital. They devised several ingenious mechanisms to reduce the risks involved in contributing money to a common fund. They tried to overcome collective action problems by maximising both confidence and trust. Social capital facilitated their agency in a disempowering context while at the same time exposing them to the free riding behaviour of in-laws. Finally, the social networks of these women are not independent of the social networks of other, better-connected women with whom they are in competition, which points to a weakness of social capital and neo-institutionalist perspectives.