Intellectual and cognitive aspects of women entrepreneurs in India

Although it is well accepted across our country, that the significance and impact of women entrepreneurship are critical for overall sustainable development, the actual level of venture creation by females is much lower than that by males. The purpose of our research is to investigate the role of various factors affecting women entrepreneurship in India. By integrating the intellectual capital and cognitive framework to analyses the venture creation phenomenon, we aim to understand in greater clarity, the underlying factors behind women entrepreneurship. A comprehensive data of 1,765 Indian females from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor was utilised. Logistic regression was applied to analyse the influence of entrepreneurial cognition and intellectual capital on the entrepreneurial intentions of Indian women. Among all the proxy measures of intellectual capital, only owning and managing a firm has a significant positive effect. The perception of opportunities and the perception of social legitimacy, both are significantly related to entrepreneurial intentions.