Transformations  in
Business & Economics

Women Entrepreneurship in the European Labour Market: Time to Go Online
Dainora Grundey, Miglė Sarvutytė

ABSTRACT. This article is dedicated to the discussion on the growing tendency of European women participating in the labour market, especially on the tendency to challenge entrepreneurship alongside with male counterparts. Despite the fact that the issue equal opportunities is still an urgent problem In Europe, European women-entrepreneurs are undertaking determined steps to face business barriers – internal and external. The main research goal of this paper is to determine current tendencies in the entrepreneurial activities of European women in selected countries and discuss the challenges for developing and fostering successful business run by women in Europe.

Besides, an exclusive attention is drawn to the women’s initiatives participating in business and research projects on the European scale. It has been identified that in Lithuania, for example, businesswomen experience a wide gap in information supply on women issues in the economic-political, social-cultural and scientific context. This problem could be solved through establishing a target website or portal, which sensibly determines the need of women-entrepreneurs going online. The case study of the UK can prove how Internet communication and information placement in target women’s websites fosters women’s entrepreneurship in the country. The authors of this paper encourages Lithuanian women in general and businesswomen to follow the e-initiative of other European countries by creating e-networks, e-forums and e-discussions for problem solving, sharing experience and best practices.

KEYWORDS: entrepreneurship, labour market, women entrepreneurs, activities online, Europe, Lithuania.

JEL classification: L26, J4, L84, B54, Z19, P2.