Gender Differences in Business Record Keeping and Planning: Evidence from Informal Enterprises in Iraq
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Hassan F. Gholipour
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John W. Goodell
Abstract
Business record keeping, along with business planning, are foundational steps in businesses moving from informal stature to contributing to the capitalization of assets. Thus, the transitioning of informal businesses to business record keeping and planning is significant for economic development. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there is a relationship between the gender of informal business owners and their engagement in business record keeping and planning in an emerging economy. We take advantage of a unique data set on informal enterprises in Iraq to show that women, versus male, leaders of informal businesses are more likely to adopt business record keeping and formal business planning. Following the foundational theories of Max Weber (Gerth and Mills 2014), we attribute our results to groups that are excluded from dominant relationship networks relying more on rational bureaucracy. Results will be of great interest to scholars and policymakers interested in the impacts of gender differences on financial development.
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Research funding: The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Ethical approval: This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.
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Availability of data and material: Data will be available upon request.
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Conflicts of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
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