Female entrepreneurship in emerging economies faces significant barriers, primarily stemming from inadequacies within the internal business environment, entrenched cultural norms, emerging market trends, and management inefficiencies. These challenges constrain women’s capacity to effectively ad dress the external pressures their businesses encounter, impeding both their growth and sustainability. This study investigates how three female entrepreneurs from East Africa manage their internal business environment to navigate external demands while maintaining a focus on scaling their enterprises. A qualitative, phenomenological research approach was adopted, employing in-depth interviews to treat each entrepreneur as a distinct case study. The analysis yielded eight thematic areas, highlighting critical internal elements that must be collectively optimized to mitigate external business challenges and foster enterprise growth. These insights provide practical, context-specific knowledge from the African female entrepreneurial perspective on internal mechanisms essential for sustaining and expanding their ventures. This study contributes to the existing literature on women’s economic empowerment by identifying the vital role of internal business environments in ensuring continued growth and long-term sustainability for female entrepreneurs in emerging economies.

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Keywords

Internal Business Environment, Female Entrepreneurship, Economic empowerment; business sustainability, management inefficiencies