Rural entrepreneurs as achievers
Reviewed by B.B Goel

Empowering Rural Women (Micro-enterprise through Achievement Motivation)
By Kiron Wadhera and George Koreth. Sage. Pages 191. Rs 395

In management jargon, the period of the 1950s was a golden era in the development of motivation concepts by Maslow (hierarchy of needs), McGregor ( X & Y theory), Herzberg (two-factor theory), David McClelland and his associates (contemporary theories). McClelland, while examining the relationship between achievement and productivity made use of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). It is a tool to identify and assess inner drives of an individual(s). It consists of showing individuals a series of pictures and asking them to give a brief of what was happening there.

The responses are analysed in terms of the presence/absence of certain themes which are categorised as achievement, affiliation and power. Out of these , achievement motivation is considered essential for survival and growth of an entrepreneur or a small entrepreneurial firm. Here, individuals on their own set challenging goals, assume personal responsibility and take calculated risks to achieve them.

Empowering Rural Women, an outcome of doctoral work of Kiron Wadhera, is a painstaking effort on poor, rural women micro- entrepreneurs, whose achievement motivation based on TAT, has been vigorously measured. The results are startling as it establishes a clear relationship between presence/ absence of achievement motivation and success/failure in sustaining the enterprise.

The study was carried out for developing micro-enterprises in 18 villages of Bharatpur district of Rajasthan, based on a model devised by a Delhi based NGO- Asian Centre for Organisation Research and Development (ACCORD ). Unlike several schemes promoted by Nabard, Sidbi, Sewa etc., to improve the financial lot of women through micro-credit, income-generation activities and SHGs, the ACCORD approach encompasses all steps of micro-enterprise not in cash, but in kind (material). The easy availability of material on nominal service charges, spread over from three months to one year without collateral or security, convenient weekly repayments after an initial settling down period, regular training for potential entrepreneurs etc, are some of the hallmarks of the model. As a result, without disturbing the power structure of a conservative society, women entrepreneurs have brought about a quiet revolution by attaining self confidence, self- belief, and self-esteem to enhance their dignity.

The introductory chapter revolves around theories of motivation, role and characteristics of entrepreneurship and review of literature on measuring achievement motivation. The authors aver that studies on rural women entrepreneurs and measuring their need for achievement were rare. Chapter 2 explains uniqueness of the ACCORD model which is both replicable and sustainable. A bird’s-eye view of Bharatpur district, profile of sampled women and empowerment impact of rural entrepreneurs, has been explained in the next chapter.

As regards improvement in self confidence, some men laughingly remarked that their wives had now become "very smart". Similarly, impact of familial decision making was so high that one entrepreneur aptly said, "Now I can go out of the house and buy things for my shop, for myself and for my children". Analysing the TAT score of the universe established that those displaying achievement motivation, were most successful even in expanding or diversifying their entrepreneurial efforts.

The most lucid discussion in the book is on 15 live studies of achievers and non achievers, divided into four parts. Firstly, those displaying the need for achievement and turned successful had inner motivation to handle risks, were familiar with knowledge and skills, and could sustain entrepreneurial activity for long by expanding and diversifying business. The second category had some need for achievement but did not succeed partly because they chose production end and did not venture to sell. Those who had no need for achievement and remained unsuccessful , fell in third list. They chose to produce items for sale without any reality check and did not even persist to sustain their initiative. The last category comprised successful entrepreneurs even without displaying need for achievement. They became more of a manager than an entrepreneur due to need for power. The crux is that presence of need for achievement has a positive relation to sustenance and empowers underprivileged women.

The conclusions emerging from the study deserve kudos. Policy makers can ungrudgingly initiate countrywide pilot projects for adapting the model to circumvent gender equality, discrimination and centuries- old taboos to achieve Millennium Development Goals. The discussion, however, would have been more lively, interesting and fruitful by avoiding frequent repetitions. More so, being an exclusive doctoral effort, the co-author could have easily skipped his name.

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