Gender Perspective of Decision-Making Power in Small-scale Enterprises: A Study of the Tourism Industry in Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka

This study investigates the factors, processes and conditions that determine women's decision-making power in the small-scale enterprises in the tourism industry in Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka. This exploratory study employed several data collection techniques, including key informant interviews, non-participant observation, questionnaires, surveys, and in-depth interviews, carried out among small-scale tourist enterprises in the Hikkaduwa Urban Council area of the Galle district, Sri Lanka. The samples were selected using stratified and purposive sampling, and the data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Secondary information was primarily collected from the literature on gender studies and relevant documents of small-scale enterprises. This paper argues that the gender-appropriate roles and the values attached to them have had a more significant effect on determining women's status within business associations. Moreover, women's financial independence and decision-making power were lost under patriarchal control, which had a more significant influence on the nature of participation in the business phase, where women had to hold lower-level positions. At the same time, men remain in higher positions in business associations. This, again, leaves women with the least power in decision-making. For that reason, despite this significant contribution, women still participate in the family but hold an unimportant role in determining a better position for their status