Investigation the Iranian Women Entrepreneurs' Viewpoints on Institutional Pressures to Institutional Pressures

In today's competitive and market-based economy, driven by rapid and accelerating international change, entrepreneurship is referred to as the engine of economic development. Due to the positive effects of entrepreneurship, many developing countries including Iran have chosen entrepreneurship as a key solution to weak economic growth, rising unemployment rates and the inability of the public and private sector to provide suitable jobs for college graduates. The main purpose of this study is to identify the institutional pressures imposed on Iranian women entrepreneurs and their viewpoints on these pressures as well as the context of these responses. The research is fundamental in terms of outcome and exploratory in terms of purpose. The study population consisted of female entrepreneurs honored at provincial and national women's festivals in three provinces of Golestan, Mazandaran and Hormozgan and participants were selected through snowball method. After collecting data through in-depth semi-structured interviews, data analysis was conducted using a three-step coding approach. According to the results, specific pressures on women entrepreneurs in the regulatory dimension include pressure from the authorities, in the normative dimension include pressure from the men of society and pressure from the family and in the diagnostic dimension include the duties of women, self-esteem and self-neglect. They also use the strategy of reconciliation, avoidance, struggle and manipulation in response to the regulatory pressures of reconciliation, avoidance and countering strategies and in response to the diagnostic pressures.