Title: The relationship between rural retailing, women agropreneurs innovativeness and firm performance: a conceptual review and avenues for future research

Authors: Arpita Mehta

Addresses: Mehta Enterprise, 100, Jawahar Marg, MP, India

Abstract: Now is the time for women agropreneurs to accept this challenge for mutual benefits. Inadequate rural marketing network will be a major bottleneck in women agropreneurship. The women agropreneurs should be oriented to make a swift forecast of the demand for various commodities and exploit the opportunities. There is good scope for setting up market outlets to reach the customers without involving too many middlemen. Business houses can establish a direct link with women agropreneurs' firms for procuring raw materials. Such agencies can support women agropreneurs with seeds of improved varieties, finance and other critical inputs for optimising their crop yield. In this context, the Make in India initiative, which aims at job creation, should focus on rural India to ensure impact. This work will help to understand critical success factors (CSFs), Critical Failure Factors (CFFs), characteristics of Indian rural retailing, barriers, risk, prospects, constraints & consequences of rural retailing with special reference to Indian women agropreneurs' innovativeness and firm performance.

Keywords: rural retailers; agropreneurship; retailing; India; SMEs; innovation; women agropreneurs; innovativeness; firm performance; innovation; female agropreneurs; women entrepreneurs; female entrepreneurs; rural marketing networks; rural communities; critical success factors; CSFs; critical failure factors; CFFs.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGE.2016.080553

International Journal of Green Economics, 2016 Vol.10 No.2, pp.151 - 190

Received: 15 Jun 2016
Accepted: 20 Sep 2016
Published online: 29 Nov 2016 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article