Measuring the Effectiveness of DTI's Kapatid Mentor ME Program on Female Entrepreneurs' Business Performance and their Level of Women Empowerment (CALABARZON)

Date

9-2021

Degree

Bachelor of Science in Agribusiness Management

College

College of Economics and Management (CEM)

Adviser/Committee Chair

Glenn Navarra Baticados

Abstract

Globally, women entrepreneurs own 252 million businesses creating the fastest growing business segment (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2019). Considering that women entrepreneurs are very significant for providing additional income and employment for their families, and their immediate communities, especially in localities of developing nations, there have been no previous wide-scale studies in CALABARZON, Philippines. Moreover, there has been little research into the process of providing support for female start-up entrepreneurs, and little evaluation of the provision of support for existing small firm entrepreneurs. In addition, gender sensitivity is critical and gender-awareness needs assessment through assessing the empowerment of women is a vital tool to good program design and service delivery to support female entrepreneurs (Sarri and Trihopoulou, 2005; Orhan and Scott, 2001; Still and Timms, 2000).

In the Philippines, Project KAPATID is an initiative of the Department of Trade and Industry and the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship (PCE) to help the country's micro and small enterprises (MSEs). One of the key components of the program is the Mentor ME project. The Kapatid Mentor ME (KMME) program has been implemented since 2016 as a 10-module mentorship program which aims to help micro and small entrepreneurs scale up their enterprises, spur economic activity and generate employment opportunities, mainstream OTOPreneurs who are ready for business expansion.

This study aimed to measure and assess the effectiveness of DTI's Kapatid Mentor Me Program on the business entrepreneurial performance and the level of women empowerment on the female entrepreneur graduates of the KMME program in CALABARZON, Philippines. Specifically, it aims to: (a) profile the women entrepreneur graduates of DTI's Kapatid Mentor Me program and their businesses, (b) describe the business performance of women entreprenuers based on the KMME program design, (c) identify which entrepreneurial, as well as business, skills and knowledge the women entrepreneurs have learned and gained after they completed the mentorship program, (d) compare the effectiveness of KMME program and its effect on the level of women empowerment between entrepreneurs in different provinces in CALABARZON, and (e) formulate recommendations for the KMME program on improving mentorship program on a business performance level assessment, and in strengthening the level of empowerment through tailoring mentorship programs for women entrepreneurs.

The KMME program which aims to provide business mentorship and training to entrepreneurs with Micro, Small, and Medium enterprises in the Philippines, and this study specifically assessed their Region IV-A female entrepreneur graduates from 2016(14), 2017(17), 2018(38), 2019(48), and 2020(60). The 177 female entrepreneurs came from Quezon accounting to 49 (27.68%), 44 (24.86%) came from Cavite, 39 (22.03%) came from Laguna, 32 (18.08%) came from Rizal, and 13 (7.34%) from Batangas which reflects their true share of size in the whole 292 population of all female entrepreneur graduates in the KMME program. The age group of 35-44 and 45-54 accumulated the greatest number of respondents, 65 (36.72%) and 54 (30.51%) respectively. Majority of the respondents identify as a heterosexual (145, 82%) over the 18% that identify as non-heterosexual (bisexual, homosexual, transgender, and non-binary). This reflected in their civil status where majority are married (128), and among the respondents, 14 (8%) pursued a post-graduate degree while most of the respondents finished college, 119 (67.23%). This data reflected their position in their companies which are mostly either owners, board of directors or in a C-level position, 165 (93.22%).

The business profile considers six major industries which include Food/Non-Food Processing (73), Production & Manufacturing (66), Service (23), Trading & Retail (8), Cooperatives (4), and Tourism (3). Most of them are micro enterprises (137), and had their business established for 3-5 years (66). Most of what comprised the total number of KMME female entrepreneurs are in their Start-up and Growth stage, with 73 (41%) and 79 (45%) respectively.

The study assessed the KMME program based on the three domains of their training program: The Entrepreneur, The Enterprise, and Sustaining the Enterprise. The Entrepreneur domain consists of mentorship on skills, knowledge, and values transfer which showed that 83.05% or a total of 147 respondents scored high and only 1.13% or 2 respondents scored low, and with their entrepreneur resilience, majority of the female entrepreneurs improved on this aspect, and was able to dominate both the high and medium category scores, 138 (77.97%), 38 (21.47%) respectively. For the enterprise domain, the KMME program has proven to be highly effective in ascending order for the following areas: legal capability (87.57%), operations management (70.06%), taxation (59.32%), marketing (56.50%), accounting (44.63%), finance (23.73%), and product development (20%). Lastly, in sustaining the enterprise, the KMME female entrepreneurs have scored high the most in succession planning (80.79%), followed by business plan development (75.14%), human resource management (60.45%), and supply & value chain falling at 32.50%.

Through Pearson's Correlation Coefficient analysis, the study has also proven that all the three domains of the mentorship program are dependent on each other which means that as one improves their entrepreneurial spirit and skills, this is also contingent to have an improved business performance and ability to sustain a business. This proves various theoretical studies of the trainability of entrepreneurs purporting to develop enterprising people and inculcate an attitude of self-reliance aimed directly at stimulating entrepreneurship and business performance by McClelland (1969: 1), Gibb (1993: 3), Welsch (1993: 14), Van Vuuren (1997: 1), Hisrich and Peters (1998: 19), Kuratko and Hodgetts (1998: 10), Nieman (2001: 1), Pretorius and Van Vuuren (2003: 515), Van der Merwe and Nieman (2002: 35), as well as Antonites (2003: 31).

By Analysis of Variance, the study has also proven that the implementation of the Department of Trade and Industry's KMME program is consistently effective within the CALABARZON Region which meant that almost all of the average KMME Program Effectiveness scores of the female entrepreneurs were at par with each other across the whole region. Additionally, none of their socio-demographic characteristics affected the KMME program's effectiveness as tested through a chi-square statistic test.

Since the study wanted to prove the effectiveness of the KMME program to the level of women empowerment of the female entrepreneurs, the empowerment was dissected to the three major facets of empowerment which were their decision-making power, level of mobility, and awareness or capacity building after completion of the program. Through the 5-point Likert scale analysis, the study's data has proven than for each of the three domains, majority of the female entrepreneurs lie between being moderately empowered to empowered. The overall level of women empowerment of the majority of the female entrepreneurs (145) however proves to be empowered to vey empowered.

In dissecting their overall level of women empowerment, the KMME female entrepreneurs who identify as non-heterosexual still had lower levels of empowerment on average as compare to the heterosexual female entrepreneurs which is depicted within the range of "slightly empowered" to "empowered". The t-test revealed that there is no significant difference between the two gender identities when pertaining to their decision-making power, level of mobility, and awareness or capacity building which implies that the effectiveness of the Kapatid Mentor Me program to their level of women empowerment is consistent regardless of the gender identity of the female entrepreneurs. As a result of the chi-square test, none of their socio-demographic characteristics affected the extent of their overall level of women empowerment.

Overall, the data shows that the Kapatid Mentor Me program has proven to be effective in empowering women entrepreneurs with a very weak positive relationship which were determined using a Pearson's Correlation Coefficient test. This data meant that the women's agency, access, capability, and social change are directly proportional to the business performance of women entrepreneurs. It can be noted however that in dissecting the overall KMME program intervention, all domains have proven to be significantly correlated in a woman's empowerment does not necessarily translate to a higher or lower capability in being able to sustain a business. It is also proven that none of their socio-demographic and business characteristics are dependent to them being empowered or being effective in their business through the use of a chi-square statistic test.

Finally, of the 177 respondents, 160 said that their expectation were met by the program which reflected to their overall satisfaction level of the program where majority of the female entrepreneurs were strongly satisfied in the program (116, 65.5%).

The recommendation of the study focused on two key players of the KMME Program which were the DTI and KMME female entrepreneurs. Based on the evaluation of the KMME female entrepreneurs, product development, marketing and finance improvement were the lowest average score in the KMME program efficiency. In terms of product development, most of the entrepreneurs only had 0-2 new products after the program, and were only able to change product packaging. This could be attributed to how majority of their businesses were micro enterprises and are still in the start-up stage. The researcher suggests for DTI's KMME program improvement a design-thinking and product innovation classes or trainings which essentially improves both product development and marketing. In terms of the finance domain, the study would suggest classes and trainings in strategic cost analysis, managing product platforms, improving pricing performance, as well as understanding finance in the virtual age through driving profitable growth, and leveraging fintech innovation to grow and compete in the new market.

It can be noted about 172 out of the 177 female entrepreneurs have suffered a great economic and entrepreneurial hit this COVID19 pandemic which has disrupted their business operations-most of the women entrepreneurs felt a significant reduction of orders (95), and about 12 female entrepreneurs have temporarily closed their businesses due to the COVID19 restrictions on business operations. On the contrary, only about 5 female entrepreneurs felt that they have not faced any problems this pandemic. The study then recommends with the implementation of Kapatid Mentor Me Online program, it is important to specifically target solutions in overcoming digitally driven changes in the market. The study specifically suggests classes like driving digital strategy, competing in the age of digital platforms, organizational design for digital transformation, digital marketing analytics, and leading successful transitions in a digitally driven world.

For the KMME female entrepreneurs, it is evident that they have gained high improvement in their entrepreneurial skills, knowledge, and values, as well as entrepreneurial resilience; however, it is important to note that majority of the entrepreneurs occupy c-level positions in their businesses. It is then crucial to improve this association to drive their entrepreneurial performance even better. The study recommends that they have to expand their repertoire of leadership and management strategies designed exclusively for executive women through aligning their leadership strategy and style with their own personal values and self-image, capturing maximum value through skillful and effective negotiation, and leading organizational change and creating an environment that inspires and sustains results-focused change. It has also been proven that majority of the KMME female entrepreneurs lie between the range of "empowered" to "very empowered" when it come to their overall level of empowerment which essentially proves that the KMME program has added improvement to this facet of their identity as entrepreneurs. As they are already graduates of the mentorship program, the study also recommends for them to utilize more public and private sectors that offer business training and development specifically for women.

Lastly, for future literature and framework, more research could be explored on conducting a mentorship program analysis through a before and after analysis of the program with a more conducive timeline of study (i.e., for new batches of the program, evaluating the entrepreneurs before the implementation of the program and after completion of the program). Research could also be explored through studying a greater scope such as the whole male and female entrepreneur graduates of the KMME program, and exploring other regions for the study. Almost half of the MSMEs in the 2018 were located in three regions, namely NCR (20.4% with 203,312 establishments), CALABARZON (14.8% with 148,196) and Central Luzon (11.6% with 116,073). Other regions which hosted a significant number of MSMEs are Central and Western Visayas and Davao. Future framework for other studies that involve gender diversity in the workplace and in business would include gender mainstreaming which leads to better government through better informed policy-making which challenges the assumption that policies are gender neutral-which they never have been. (Source: IUCN).

Language

English

LC Subject

Businesswomen, Entrepreneurship--Philippines

Location

UPLB College of Economics and Management (CEM)

Call Number

LG 993 2022 M17 A45

Notes

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Document Type

Thesis

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