The rapid emergence of women as owners of small businesses has important implications for the study of women’s entrepreneurship. Differences in views and theoretical submissions call for more research on the role of gender in entrepreneurship. While liberal feminism holds that men and women are essentially equal, social feminism focuses on the unique needs, experiences, competencies and values of women as women. In entrepreneurship research, efforts on the effect of gender on firm’s performance are still very scanty and results from the few efforts are inconsistent. To extend knowledge on hoe gender influences entrepreneurial operations, this study investigates the impact of gender on business-related knowledge of small-scale manufacturing entrepreneurs in Lagos State, Nigeria. Two hundred and twenty five purposively selected firms participated in the study. Results revealed significant relationship between gender and the comprehensive knowledge set of respondents. Further analysis revealed a strong association between gender and knowledge of how to serve market, but no significant association was found between gender and familiarity with customers’ problems. Findings suggest that small scale female entrepreneurs possess more business-related knowledge that their male counterparts.
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