Japanese women's entrepreneurship: Poignancy and power of passion

Entrepreneurial Japanese women between the ages of 30 and 40 have wrought fundamental changes in Japanese women's roles and status, extending the paradigm of a woman's position in Japanese society. Their opportunities for entrepreneurship were incubated in the remarkable economic growth after World War II, which tendered new and challenging professional opportunities. This study is an in-depth, qualitative analysis that explores and furthers our understanding of entrepreneurship for Japanese women. To engage entrepreneurship, the Japanese women in my study were required to challenge Japanese traditions. Their entrepreneurial successes induced social and cultural changes.;The study focuses on the fifteen top women entrepreneurs in Japan, as determined by: (1) acquisition of major business awards, (2) businesses in the service industry and (3) at least five years of entrepreneurship. Seven of these women were educated only in Japan, while the other eight pursued educational experiences in foreign countries. The interviews, structured in two stages, solicited their background profiles and encouraged reflection of their backgrounds and entrepreneurial experiences.;The following three themes framed the purpose of the research: (1) to understand what contributes to the development of Japanese women entrepreneurs; (2) to investigate how they characterize their strategies to meet their entrepreneurial goals; and (3) to examine how cultural and gendered constructions influence the growth of Japanese entrepreneurial women's identities.;The study revealed a comprehensive framework of Japanese women's entrepreneurial development. While the fifteen women underwent myriad, formative experiences, they achieved their entrepreneurial identities by synthesizing their educational, professional and personal experiences. Traumatic experiences in childhood and early adolescence configured their core values and professional goals. Subsequent to those experiences, they constructed the central purposes of their lives, and aligned their business goals with their social missions.;The fifteen women entrepreneurs demonstrated social and cerebral agility and a capacity for self-renewal and efficacy in order to compete in a male-dominated corporate world. Some of the overarching themes captured in this study are agency, access, credibility, network and competency. Each of these themes illustrates the aggregate processes of their entrepreneurial development.;The fifteen Japanese women entrepreneurs in the study shared compelling life stories. They are stories of courage that enabled their transformation into entrepreneurs. Their extraordinary passion and tenacity rendered remarkable successes in the male-dominated Japanese corporate world.