Role of social capital and self-efficacy in opportunity recognition of female entrepreneurs: insights from Turkey and Vietnam

This paper seeks to explore how women entrepreneurs’ social capital and self-efficacy affect their opportunity recognition. This study focused exclusively on women entrepreneurs rather than comparing men and women entrepreneurs. The study is based on a multiple case study and cultural comparison of six Turkish and six Vietnamese women entrepreneurs. Social cognitive theory is used as the theoretical framework in this study. The results showed that social capital plays a significant role in affecting opportunity recognition in both countries. Self-efficacy effects vary across the cases and the two countries. Culture has a significant role in mediating the effect of self-efficacy.