'Women are power, they are roots, they are everything' : How entrepreneurial identity enables economic empowerment from microloans

Abstract: This study adds new knowledge to the understanding of the usefulness of microcredit as a means to empower poor women. Using theory on women’s entrepreneurial identity, this study elucidates the functioning of such an identity to the entrepreneurship and of the social mechanisms of importance to attaining such an identity, that enable women to establish an income generating business, from microloans. Through a comparison of women entrepreneurs with greater success and women entrepreneurs with less success respectively, this paper explains how an entrepreneurial identity is constructed through influence of network and an ability to respond to social and gendered norms and expectations by women entrepreneurs, which enables them to successfully pursue microenterprises in Arusha, Tanzania.