Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Company formation, Business Plans, Management Center Innsbruck, language: English, abstract: This paper starts with a definition of the term entrepreneurship and its relation to eco-nomic development in the second section. The third section is concerned with the elab-oration of womens motives and intentions as well as the challenges and constraints affecting their decision to engage in entrepreneurial activity. The penultimate section deals with the influence of macro-environmental factors on the emergence of women-owned enterprises. Finally, the last section discusses and summarizes the results. Due to the fact that entrepreneurship includes a huge variety of activities and undergoes constant change, many definitions are existent. Thus, entrepreneurship is nowadays seen as a dynamic process requiring energy and passion towards new ideas and crea-tive solutions. Entrepreneurs are supposed to take risks, while simultaneously identifying opportunities. However, not every entrepreneur has the possibility to recognize opportunities, as his or her entry into entrepreneurship is strongly depend-ent on the surrounding environment. Some entrepreneurs are indeed able to respond to a perceived market opportunity. Others are forced into starting a business due to unfa-vorable circumstances. Unfavorable circumstances are, for example, the unavailability of appropriate paid employment in recessionary economic conditions.