Women Entrepreneurs–A Study With Special Reference to Floriculture in Dakshina Kannada District of Karnataka

The local flower producers/ sellers in Mangalore are a classical example of need based entrepreneurship. The aim of this research is to examine the reasons for women entering into the business of producing and selling flowers as a means of supporting their families and eradicating poverty in their homes.

The object of the study was to understand the reasons for women taking up the business of producing and selling flowers and to study the role of formal education in building entrepreneurial skills of women.

The study reveals that these women were solely responsible for eradicating poverty in their homes. They were entrepreneurs in a social and commercial sense and took up entrepreneurship with sole aim of eradicating poverty. The study further reveals that traditional producing and selling of flowers has declined for various reasons including the modern boutique shops and flower merchants which are operating in a large scale and selling erotic flowers which have longer shelf life and have caught the fancy and aesthetic sense of the customers. In this study the authors find that nearly half a decade ago women entrepreneurship in floriculture was flourishing. During those days there were other factors which forced women to become entrepreneurs in their own way.