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Female entrepreneurs often face significant conflicts in allocating time and resources to the various roles demanded of them by their communities. This has been identified as a potential obstacle to their performance as entrepreneurs. This paper aims to examine the question: How do women cope with role conflict?

The authors tackled the question by conducting a survey that involved 307 female business owners in Ethiopia. The survey result was supported by 20 in-depth interviews.

The commonest coping strategies identified were negotiation, committing to the entrepreneurial role, committing to social roles, pleasing all, seeking social support and hiring outside support. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed that these coping strategies differed across the various stages of business growth. Meanwhile, structural equation modeling established that female business owners with high levels of personal resources (such as optimism, self-efficacy and resilience) committed more to their entrepreneurial roles than to their social roles.

This research contributes knowledge on coping strategies among female entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa, where family structure and orientation, the economy and social development differ from those in developed countries. The research also integrates the lines of empirical research on coping strategies with the process-based view of entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to develop items for measuring the role conflict between social role expectations (SREs) and entrepreneurial role demands (ERDs) among women entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

This paper uses 20 interviews and literature from SSA to develop items, a survey of 408 to conduct factor analysis and a survey of 307 to conduct criterion validity analysis.

Statistical analysis shows that the scales used adequately captured two dimensions of SRE and ERD conflict: SRE-to-ERD conflict and ERD-to-SRE conflict. It was found that the SRE-to-ERD-conflict scale is reliable and valid with the five dimensions of entrepreneurial success and that women entrepreneur’s experience significant role conflict between SREs and ERDs.

The implication is that standard scales measuring work and family conflict, which tend to focus solely on the work and family context, cannot adequately account for role conflict among women entrepreneurs.

The practical implications of these findings are discussed.

New scale items form measuring the conflict between SREs and ERDs were developed.