This paper examines how rural female entrepreneurs in Lebanon navigate challenges and opportunities amidst economic crises. It aims to understand how they leverage resources to overcome barriers and enhance their entrepreneurial potential, offering insights for fostering sustainable entrepreneurship in crisis-affected regions. This study employs Integrative Qualitative Methods, combining participatory action research (PAR) and narrative inquiry, to explore the motivations, experiences and aspirations of rural female entrepreneurs in Lebanon. Amidst severe economic crises, 28 female entrepreneurs participated in a three-year program supporting their businesses. The findings indicate that rural female entrepreneurs in Lebanon are primarily motivated by family sustainability, social effect and personal fulfillment. They demonstrate significant adaptability to market changes and are able to leverage support networks to manage resources effectively. Strategic resource allocation, communication and collaboration are key to their success. Overall, these findings highlight the resilience and strategic acumen of rural female entrepreneurs, emphasizing the importance of ongoing support for economic growth and community development.
This study aims to create a cross-cultural item bank that enables accurate, specific and comprehensive measurement of entrepreneurial personality traits associated with successful businesses. The traits were identified through a literature review, a panel of experts and entrepreneurs. Forty-four experts were used for the content analysis of the item bank and 35 entrepreneurs were interviewed to analyze and validate the item bank with considerable evidence. We identified sixteen entrepreneurial personality traits grounded in theory, each linked to entrepreneurial success, constructed a cross-cultural item bank customized to five Spanish-speaking countries to enable a more culturally sensitive measurement, and provided evidence of both content and response process validities. The item bank advances the measurement of entrepreneurial personality traits, transcending the constraints of conventional psychometric tests to offer a less intrusive, yet more accurate and efficient, alternative. A foundation is provided for a computerized adaptive test capable of assessing a range of entrepreneur-specific constructs for a better alignment between project stakeholders and a reduced risk of failure.