8. Conclusion
Current approaches to female entrepreneurship in emerging economies require additional attention to understand how turbulent environments affect the success of women-owned businesses. Studies need to be conducted to tap into the idiosyncrasies of environments that have undergone volatile and dramatic political and socio-cultural changes, including social unrest or war in countries such as Egypt, Brazil, Venezuela, Sudan, Ukraine, or Syria. Dynamics in such settings are different from those in other emerging economies, such as the former Soviet Republics, countries of Eastern and Central Europe, and China. However, understanding how they affect business success is imperative to the country recovering and the speed of recovery. The results show that in a hostile institutional environment, only human capital matters. Social capital is not relevant. This finding has theoretical and practical implications. New theoretical approaches to studies of entrepreneurial processes, including gender-related studies, in hostile environments should be developed. Our findings also suggest that country context matters. Results of studies from other countries may not be comparable. From a practical perspective, public policy makers could use the findings to shape their approach to promoting and fostering entrepreneurship in various settings. Specifically, in hostile environments, such as the one defined in this study, more emphasis should be put on the entrepreneurs' personal abilities (i.e., their human capital) rather than on their social skills.
