Setting the scene for women's entrepreneurship in the Asian region

This book explores women’s entrepreneurship in the Asian region. Entrepreneurship refers to the identification, evaluation and exploitation of new business opportunities (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000). The Asian region is diverse yet shares common cultural values and geographical boundaries. We refer to Asia to include countries such as China, India, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2021) and West Asia to include Saudi Arabia, Turkey. Many of these Asian countries are developing economies experiencing fast economic growth in the last two or three decades. These countries often experience sociocultural values and/or religious beliefs that often hold women in inferior positions, and there are many barriers that may impede Asian women from reaching their economic goals and potential (Cho et al., 2020).