Gendered Financial Literacy and Digital Marketing Adoption: Insights from Female Entrepreneurs in an Emerging Economy

Abstract

In developing economies, women entrepreneurs play a vital role in advancing inclusive growth, yet their financial and digital capabilities often remain constrained by gendered barriers. This study investigates how financial literacy evolves into a gender-sensitive capability that drives digital marketing adoption and entrepreneurial sustainability among women-led SMEs in Indonesia. Guided by the Theory of Reasoned Action, the Technology Acceptance Model, the Knowledge-Based View, and Feminist Entrepreneurship Theory, this study employs a qualitative design involving 75 participants—45 women entrepreneurs and 30 supporting stakeholders. Using an iterative, spiral-oriented analytical approach, thematic insights were integrated with theoretical interpretation to uncover patterns of financial–digital capability development. Findings reveal that women’s financial literacy operates as both a cognitive and behavioral capability, fostering digital trust, informed decision-making, and business resilience. The study introduces the Gendered Financial Literacy Capability Model (G-FLCM), a novel inductively constructed framework that explicates how financial cognition is transformed into digital engagement and sustainable entrepreneurship. By articulating this gendered capability mechanism—absent from prior financial capability or feminist digital entrepreneurship models—the G-FLCM advances theoretical integration across behavioral, technological, and feminist perspectives while offering practical pathways for strengthening inclusive financial–digital ecosystems in emerging economies.

1. Introduction

Gender equality is a global issue that consistently remains a central focus within the sustainable development agenda. Within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 5 (Gender Equality) and Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), women’s entrepreneurship is recognized as a strategic pathway to enhance economic participation, expand access to financial resources, and strengthen women’s autonomy (Saner & Yiu, 2019; Dhahri et al., 2021; Corrêa et al., 2022; S. Gupta et al., 2024). Women’s access to entrepreneurship in the digital era is expected to broaden markets, enhance knowledge, and provide greater work flexibility (Kakeesh, 2024; Abdelwahed et al., 2025). Furthermore, women’s engagement in entrepreneurial activities has the potential to improve family welfare, foster community development, and reduce poverty through job and income creation (Mahajan & Bandyopadhyay, 2021; Henry et al., 2021; Tang, 2022; Jennings et al., 2023).

Nevertheless, women entrepreneurs—particularly those operating within the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector—continue to face a range of challenges, including limited access to capital, lack of managerial experience, difficulties in balancing work and family responsibilities, gender discrimination, sociocultural barriers, and insufficient governmental support (Pareek & Bagrecha, 2017; Cullen, 2020; Jayawarna et al., 2021; Botha & Taljaard, 2021; Martinez Dy et al., 2024). Under such conditions, adequate financial literacy becomes a crucial determinant for business sustainability. As highlighted by Hasan et al. (2024) and Hidayat-ur-Rehman (2025), financial literacy and digital transformation are essential resources within the framework of the resource-based view (RBV).

However, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2024 and data from the Central Statistics Agency of Indonesia continue to indicate persistent wage disparities between men and women (Wihardja & Pradana, 2024; Aryani et al., 2024; Skare et al., 2025), primarily stemming from differences in educational attainment, work experience, occupational types, and labor market segmentation (Hirata & Soares, 2020; Rotman & Mandel, 2023). In Indonesia, the Gender Equality Index over the past two decades has fluctuated between 64% and 70%, with both progress and setbacks observed across dimensions such as women’s economic participation, health, education, and political representation (Wihardja & Pradana, 2024; Aryani et al., 2024; Theresia et al., 2025). These facts highlight that despite notable advancements, structural barriers to women’s entrepreneurial capacity remain significant (Bastian et al., 2019; Henry et al., 2021).

Recent literature has increasingly emphasized the importance of examining SME sustainability through a gendered lens (Khan et al., 2021; Martinez Dy et al., 2024). Several studies have revealed that the success of women-led SMEs is significantly influenced by personal factors, environmental support, and policy interventions (N. Gupta & Mirchandani, 2018; Maziriri et al., 2023). Furthermore, business sustainability is largely determined by financial management skills, digital competence, and the ability to access information networks (Hendriani et al., 2019; Olsson & Bernhard, 2021; Lemaire et al., 2023). Moreover, financial literacy has been consistently identified as a key factor contributing to the performance of SMEs (Frimpong et al., 2022; Sarpong-Kumankoma et al., 2023; Zahoor et al., 2023; Radicic & Petković, 2023; Wulandari & Hj. Kassim, 2025).

Nevertheless, there remains a theoretical and practical gap. Most studies conceptualize financial literacy as a neutral intellectual asset, without taking into account its social, cultural, and gendered dimensions. In the context of women entrepreneurs, however, financial literacy is inherently shaped by gender biases and social norms. Few studies have explored how financial literacy influences the adoption of digital marketing among women-led SMEs, particularly in developing countries. This understanding is crucial, as financial literacy not only enhances financial decision-making capabilities but also determines the effectiveness of digital marketing strategies in strengthening competitiveness, increasing return on investment (ROI), and ensuring business sustainability.

To sharpen the focus of the research problem, this study positions the core gap not only in the limited exploration of women’s financial literacy, but in the lack of an integrated understanding of how financial cognition, digital trust, behavioral intention, and gendered constraints interact to shape digital adoption. Existing studies tend to examine these domains in isolation, resulting in partial explanations. Accordingly, the use of multiple theoretical lenses is analytically necessary because each framework captures a different level of the phenomenon: TRA and TAM explain behavioral mechanisms, KBV and RBV clarify capability formation, and Feminist Entrepreneurship Theory contextualizes how gendered norms condition the enactment of these capabilities. This multi-level framing ensures conceptual precision and allows the study to trace how financial literacy evolves into a gender-sensitive digital capability within socially embedded environments.

To address this gap, the present study integrates the feminist entrepreneurship theory, the theory of reasoned action (TRA), the technology acceptance model (TAM), and the resource-based view (RBV) as well as the knowledge-based view (KBV). The feminist entrepreneurship theory is employed to understand gender-related barriers and the diversity of women entrepreneurs’ experiences; TRA and TAM are applied to explain behavioral intentions in adopting digital technologies; while RBV and KBV position financial literacy as a strategic resource that underpins business sustainability.

These theories operate at different analytical levels: TRA and TAM inform level 1 (behavioral mechanisms), KBV and RBV inform level 2 (capability formation), and feminist entrepreneurship theory informs level 3 (contextual shaping). This stratified logic prevents theoretical overlap and clarifies how each framework contributes to explaining gender-sensitive financial literacy.

Based on this framework, the study proposes three research questions:

• RQ1: How do women entrepreneurs describe and enact their financial literacy in business practice?
• RQ2: How is financial literacy implemented in women-managed SMEs?
• RQ3: How can a gender-sensitive financial literacy model explain the adoption of digital marketing among women-led SMEs?

Together, these research questions trace a coherent analytical progression—from financial cognition (RQ1) to capability enactment (RQ2) and finally to integrative model development (RQ3)—which aligns directly with the multi-level theoretical architecture of the study.

Accordingly, this study aims to investigate and explore a gender-sensitive financial literacy model that drives the adoption of digital marketing to strengthen the business sustainability of women entrepreneurs in Indonesia. This research is not only nationally relevant but also reflects the distinctive dynamics of women’s entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia, an emerging economy region facing similar challenges—low levels of digital financial literacy, limited access to formal financing, and the strong influence of sociocultural norms on entrepreneurial behavior. By examining the interaction between financial literacy, gender, and digital transformation, this study offers deeper insights into how women entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia build strategic capabilities to achieve business sustainability amid the ongoing technology-driven economic transformation.

The theoretical novelty of this study lies in the development of a gendered financial literacy model, which asserts that financial literacy is not merely a neutral asset but a capability shaped by gender, cultural, and social contexts. By integrating the feminist entrepreneurship theory, TRA, TAM, and RBV/KBV, this research expands the theoretical understanding of the interrelationship between financial literacy, digital marketing adoption, and business sustainability—a nexus that has received limited attention in the existing international literature.

Although prior studies have introduced financial capability frameworks and feminist digital entrepreneurship models, these approaches remain limited in explaining how financial literacy transforms into digital adoption within gendered contexts. Financial capability models typically emphasize individual knowledge and skills but do not incorporate digital trust formation or technology adoption mechanisms. Conversely, feminist digital entrepreneurship frameworks illuminate structural constraints but seldom specify how financial cognition interacts with behavioral intention and capability development. The G-FLCM advances this literature by integrating these domains into a single, process-oriented model that links financial literacy → digital trust → technology adoption → entrepreneurial sustainability. This multi-theoretical and empirically grounded integration differentiates the G-FLCM from existing models, offering a more comprehensive explanation of how women in emerging economies convert financial knowledge into strategic digital engagement.

To address these limitations, this study advances a novel contribution by conceptualizing gendered financial literacy not as a static cognitive attribute, but as a dynamic capability system shaped through financial cognition, digital trust formation, behavioral intention, and gendered social constraints. Unlike prior studies that examine financial literacy in general terms, this research identifies how women entrepreneurs in emerging economies transform financial knowledge into digital participation within socially embedded environments. By integrating financial literacy → digital trust → technology adoption within a gender-constraint framework, the study develops a data-driven capability model that captures iterative learning, adaptive decision-making, and empowerment processes. This gender-sensitive capability perspective extends beyond descriptive behavioral patterns documented in the literature and offers a new theoretical lens for understanding how women build strategic digital readiness.

The implicative novelty of this study lies in its focus on the Indonesian context as one of the emerging economies in Southeast Asia. The research offers practical insights that enhancing women’s financial literacy can strengthen digital marketing adoption, thereby improving SME competitiveness, increasing ROI, and promoting business sustainability. The findings have significant implications for developing gender-sensitive financial literacy training programs, inclusive credit policies for women, and SME digitalization strategies that contribute to achieving the SDGs, particularly in the areas of gender equality and inclusive economic growth.

Building upon these theoretical and practical contributions, this study adopts an empirical strategy capable of capturing the contextual, gendered, and experiential dimensions underlying women entrepreneurs’ financial and digital practices. To address the research questions, a qualitative phenomenological design was employed involving 75 informants—45 women entrepreneurs and 30 supporting stakeholders from governmental institutions, microfinance providers, digital platforms, and SME development agencies. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and visual materials, and were analyzed using Creswell and Creswell’s (2017) spiral model, which enables iterative interpretation and theme development. This methodological approach allows the study to uncover the lived experiences, social negotiations, and capability-building processes through which financial literacy evolves into digital marketing adoption within women-led SMEs in an emerging economy.

2. Theoretical Framework

This study develops a gender-sensitive financial literacy model to explain business sustainability through digital marketing adoption among women entrepreneurs in emerging economies. Accordingly, this theoretical framework synthesizes relevant conceptual and empirical literature to clarify how financial literacy, gender dynamics, and digital transformation intersect within entrepreneurial contexts. The section integrates key theoretical perspectives—namely the KBV, feminist entrepreneurship theory, and the TRA and TAM—to explain knowledge-based capability formation, gendered constraints, and technology adoption behavior. It further reviews existing financial literacy models in digital contexts to identify unresolved gaps, particularly regarding women entrepreneurs in developing economies, and culminates in the development of the Gendered Financial Literacy Capability Model (G-FLCM), which conceptualizes the interactive roles of financial knowledge, digital trust, behavioral intention, and social constraints in shaping sustainable and digitally inclusive entrepreneurial capability.

2.1. Theoretical Background: Knowledge-Based Innovation and Gendered Financial Literacy in Digital Entrepreneurship

From the KBV perspective, knowledge serves as a primary strategic resource that underpins innovation and competitive advantage (Grant, 1996; Nonaka et al., 1996). The financial knowledge possessed by entrepreneurs functions as intangible capital, determining an organization’s ability to adapt to technological and market changes (Cillo et al., 2023; Xu & Jiang, 2024). Sherani et al. (2025) describe knowledge-based innovation as systematic innovation—innovation that emerges through the continuous creation and application of new knowledge. In the context of women’s entrepreneurship, financial literacy functions not merely as a technical skill but as a knowledge-based capability that plays a crucial role in fostering innovation and business sustainability (Eniola & Entebang, 2017; Oggero et al., 2020).

According to the financial literacy theory, an individual’s ability to understand and apply basic financial concepts such as saving, investment, and risk management is directly linked to financial success (Graña-Alvarez et al., 2022; Abdallah et al., 2025). Financial literacy encompasses three key dimensions—financial knowledge, financial attitude, and financial behavior (Rehman & Mia, 2024). However, among women entrepreneurs, these three dimensions are not neutral; they are shaped by social context, cultural values, and gender relations (Mindra & Moya, 2017; Lusardi, 2019; Andriamahery & Qamruzzaman, 2022).

The feminist entrepreneurship theory (Martinez Dy et al., 2018; Henry et al., 2021; Alhajri & Aloud, 2024; Mousa et al., 2024; Huang et al., 2025) provides a framework for understanding how structural inequalities and gender biases shape women’s access to financial and digital resources. From this perspective, women’s entrepreneurship is not merely an economic activity but also a social arena of negotiation, where women construct identity, agency, and autonomy through knowledge and innovation. Consequently, gender-sensitive financial literacy can be viewed as a transformative capability—the ability to negotiate constraining social structures while simultaneously leveraging digital opportunities (Mishra et al., 2024). Throughout this manuscript, the term gendered financial literacy refers to the capability-based construct operationalized within the G-FLCM, while gender-sensitive financial literacy is used to describe the broader analytical perspective that acknowledges the influence of social norms and gendered structures.

In the digital context, the digital consumer behavior theory explains that women’s financial behavior is increasingly influenced by the flow of online information and technology-based marketing platforms (Caliskan et al., 2021; Negi & Jaiswal, 2024). Women with higher levels of financial literacy are better able to assess risks, optimize digital marketing strategies, and use financial technologies productively (Zahid et al., 2024; Showkat et al., 2024; Shehadeh et al., 2025).

To understand the underlying behavioral mechanisms, this study also integrates TRA and TAM. Both theories emphasize that technology adoption behavior is influenced by perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Davis, 1989; Venkatesh & Davis, 2000; Venkatesh et al., 2003; Kala Kamdjoug et al., 2020; Sarker et al., 2025). In the context of women’s entrepreneurship, these perceptions are strongly shaped by the level of financial literacy and trust in technology (Yadav et al., 2025; Alom et al., 2025). Thus, the integration of KBV, TRA/TAM, and feminist entrepreneurship theory provides the theoretical foundation for understanding how financial literacy can foster gender-equitable and sustainable digital marketing adoption.

The integration of KBV, feminist entrepreneurship theory, and TRA/TAM produces a comprehensive conceptual framework for understanding gender-sensitive financial literacy within the digital context. From the KBV perspective, financial knowledge is regarded as an intangible capital that generates competitive advantage through continuous learning and innovation processes. Meanwhile, feminist entrepreneurship theory extends this understanding by framing women’s financial knowledge and capabilities as a form of gendered capability—a capability shaped through the interaction of social structures, cultural values, and unequal economic experiences. This integration demonstrates that financial literacy functions not merely as a technical tool for managing resources, but also as a social mechanism to strengthen women’s agency, enhance decision-making autonomy, and expand access to technology-based innovation.

Furthermore, TRA and TAM complement the previous two theories by explaining how knowledge and gender awareness are translated into action through perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and behavioral intention in adopting digital marketing. In the context of women entrepreneurs in developing countries, the decision to adopt digital technologies depends not only on technical ability but also on social perceptions and financial self-efficacy shaped by gendered experiences. Accordingly, the integration of KBV emphasizes what they know, feminist entrepreneurship theory highlights why and under what constraints they act, and TRA/TAM explains how they behave within digital environments. Collectively, these three theories establish a robust conceptual foundation for explaining the complex relationship among financial literacy, digital marketing adoption, and business sustainability among women entrepreneurs in emerging economies, particularly in Southeast Asia.

Based on the integration of KBV, feminist entrepreneurship theory, and TRA/TAM, this study conceptualizes gender-sensitive financial literacy as a multidimensional construct situated at the intersection of knowledge, behavior, and social context. As illustrated in Figure 1, the framework positions women’s financial literacy as a strategic capability formed through the interaction among four key dimensions: financial knowledge, digital trust, behavioral intentions, and social constraints. The financial knowledge dimension represents knowledge as a strategic resource that drives innovation and business adaptation, as explained in KBV. The digital trust and behavioral intentions dimensions reflect mechanisms derived from TRA/TAM, which explain how knowledge is translated into technology adoption behavior. Meanwhile, social constraints emphasize the feminist dimension, highlighting how access, agency, and negotiation are shaped by surrounding social and cultural structures.

Accordingly, Figure 1 illustrates that gender-sensitive financial literacy is not merely a technical competence but a knowledge-based social capability that enables women entrepreneurs in developing countries to transform financial understanding into sustainable digital entrepreneurial practices.

As an extension of the conceptual framework, this study further visualizes the deeper theoretical relationships in Figure 2, which illustrates the dynamic interaction among the dimensions of knowledge, behavior, and social context in shaping gender-sensitive financial literacy. While Figure 1 serves to present the main conceptual structure, Figure 2 explains how the three foundational theories—KBV, feminist entrepreneurship theory, and TRA/TAM—are functionally interconnected and mutually reinforcing.

Figure 2 illustrates that KBV positions financial knowledge as a strategic resource that drives innovation and competitive advantage; feminist entrepreneurship theory highlights social constraints as social factors shaping women’s agency and experiences; whereas TRA/TAM, positioned diagonally, functions as an interpretive bridge linking knowledge to action through perceptions of usefulness and digital trust. Accordingly, the framework in Figure 2 emphasizes that gender-sensitive financial literacy is inherently interactive—connecting the dimensions of knowledge-based resources, gendered agency, and behavioral mechanisms—which ultimately lead to sustainable business outcomes in the digital entrepreneurship sector of developing economies.

To maintain conceptual clarity and avoid theoretical overextension, this study intentionally narrows its core analytical foundation to KBV and feminist entrepreneurship theory as the structural basis for defining gendered capability formation, while TRA and TAM are employed specifically as behavioral mechanisms that translate knowledge into digital adoption. Other perspectives such as RBV, digital consumer behavior, and Diffusion of Innovation remain supportive background frameworks rather than primary lenses, ensuring that the theoretical architecture of the G-FLCM remains coherent, focused, and analytically justified.

2.2. Empirical Background: Gendered Financial Literacy Models in Digital Context

Empirical studies indicate that financial literacy serves as a crucial instrument in strengthening women entrepreneurs’ capacity to manage their businesses in the digital era. However, most existing financial literacy models still overlook the social and gender dimensions. Therefore, this section elaborates on five key models that are frequently referenced in the literature, accompanied by an evaluation of their limitations in explaining the context of women entrepreneurs in emerging economies.

To further contextualize the development of a gendered financial literacy framework within the digital environment, this study reviews several representative models that have shaped the discourse on financial literacy and digital behavior. These models capture the multidimensional nature of financial literacy—ranging from traditional cognitive-based approaches to more recent technology-oriented and socio-psychological perspectives. However, most of them remain limited in addressing the intersection between gender, financial capability, and digital adoption.

Table 1. Analysis of financial literacy models in digital and gender contexts.

No.	Model & Key Sources	Conceptual Description	Limitations/Weaknesses	Empirical Gaps
1	Traditional Financial Literacy Model (Huston, 2010; Rai et al., 2019; Kim et al., 2019)	Emphasizes three main dimensions of financial literacy: knowledge, attitude, and behavior in financial decision-making.	Neglects social and gender dimensions; overly focused on individual cognitive aspects.	Fails to explain variations in women’s financial experiences in developing countries.
2	Digital Financial Empowerment Model (Klapper & Lusardi, 2020; Esmaeilpour Moghadam & Karami, 2023; Agyemang & Bokpin, 2025)	Highlights the role of technology and fintech in promoting inclusion and control over financial decisions.	Focuses on technological access without considering women’s social dynamics and reflective adaptation to digital tools.	Does not explain how women’s financial literacy strengthens digital adoption strategies.
3	Trust and Digital Consumer Behavior Model (Gefen et al., 2003; Punyatoya, 2019; Wang et al., 2023; Jabeen et al., 2024)	Emphasizes the importance of trust in security, credibility, and user experience in digital transactions.	Fails to consider gender bias in digital trust formation.	Lacks explanation of trust formation processes among female entrepreneurs.
4	Social Influence and Digital Financial Literacy Model (Ajzen, 2006; Bandura, 1989; Okello Candiya Bongomin et al., 2020; Asif & Sarwar, 2025)	Digital financial behavior is influenced by social norms, networks, and communities.	Underemphasizes women’s agency in negotiating social influence and independent decision-making.	Does not link social learning with women’s financial self-efficacy in digital marketing contexts.
5	Digital Financial Decision-Making Model (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984; Kumar et al., 2023; Barone et al., 2024)	Integrates cognitive and psychological aspects in digital financial decision-making.	Overly; individualistic; neglects social, cultural, and gender factors.	Fails to explain how women’s perception of risk and bias is shaped by social experiences.

summarizes and compares five dominant models that have been widely discussed in previous studies, highlighting their conceptual focus, limitations, and empirical gaps that justify the need for a new integrative model tailored to female entrepreneurs in emerging economies.

Overall, these five financial literacy models provide valuable contributions; however, each possesses notable limitations when applied to understanding women’s financial behavior in the digital context. First, the traditional financial literacy model (Huston, 2010) serves as the foundational framework for measuring financial knowledge and behavior, yet it remains gender-blind. This approach fails to capture the social dynamics and structural disparities that often place women in more vulnerable financial positions compared to men. In the context of emerging economies, women face not only knowledge gaps but also systemic barriers, such as limited access to capital and institutional bias within financial systems.

Second, the digital financial empowerment model (Klapper & Lusardi, 2020) introduces the role of technology in expanding financial inclusion and enhancing individuals’ capacity to control their financial decisions. However, this model places excessive emphasis on accessibility while overlooking the reflective and adaptive dimensions of women’s engagement with digital technology. In practice, many women in Southeast Asia adopt financial technologies not necessarily due to financial self-efficacy, but rather as a response to social pressures, family economic needs, or survival strategies in the digital marketplace (Esmaeilpour Moghadam & Karami, 2023).

Third, the trust and digital consumer behavior model (Gefen et al., 2003) emphasizes the importance of trust as a prerequisite for adopting digital financial services. However, for women entrepreneurs, trust is not derived solely from technological factors but also from social experiences, levels of digital literacy, and relational networks. Therefore, trust should not be viewed merely as an individual psychological construct, but rather as a product of layered socio-economic experiences that shape women’s risk perceptions and willingness to engage with digital technologies (Wang et al., 2023; Jabeen et al., 2024).

Fourth, the social influence and digital financial literacy model (Ajzen, 2006; Bandura, 1989) provides valuable insights into how social norms, community networks, and family support play a significant role in shaping women’s digital financial behavior. However, this model still tends to portray women as passive subjects of social influence rather than as active agents who negotiate and adapt these influences to strengthen their economic autonomy and business strategies. In practice, women entrepreneurs often utilize their social networks not only as sources of support but also as collective learning spaces for developing financial self-confidence and digital skills.

Fifth, the digital financial decision-making model (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984) introduces the psychological dimension of digital financial decision-making; however, it fails to adequately capture the social realities of women entrepreneurs in developing countries. Women’s financial decisions are often shaped by limited access, information asymmetry, and gender norms that restrict their economic participation. Consequently, the cognitive biases and risk perceptions described by this model cannot be separated from the surrounding social and cultural contexts that influence women’s decision-making processes.

From these five models, it can be concluded that the empirical literature has yet to provide a comprehensive framework for explaining how women entrepreneurs simultaneously develop financial and digital capabilities within multilayered social environments. Most existing models continue to emphasize cognitive capability and technological access, while the dimensions of gendered agency, social learning, and cultural embeddedness remain largely overlooked.

This study seeks to fill this gap by developing the G-FLCM, which integrates the perspectives of feminist entrepreneurship theory, TRA/TAM, and RBV/KBV. Through this approach, financial literacy is positioned not merely as a technical skill but as a knowledge-based and gender-conscious capability that enables women entrepreneurs to build financial self-confidence, strategically adopt digital marketing technologies, and achieve business sustainability within the socio-cultural context of Southeast Asia.

While the five models reviewed in Table 1 offer valuable conceptual foundations, the G-FLCM diverges from them in both structural design and underlying assumptions. Structurally, existing models tend to isolate financial cognition, social influence, digital behavior, or psychological decision-making as separate domains, whereas the G-FLCM introduces a sequential capability pathway linking financial cognition → digital trust → technology adoption → entrepreneurial sustainability. This process-oriented structure clarifies how capabilities evolve dynamically over time rather than depicting literacy as a static skill set. Conceptually, earlier models implicitly treat financial literacy as gender-neutral and individually driven, overlooking how women’s financial behaviors are shaped by social learning, household negotiation, and cultural expectations. The G-FLCM explicitly embeds these gendered dynamics and views capability development as a socially negotiated process rather than an individually acquired attribute. By articulating these distinctions, the G-FLCM positions itself as a theoretically integrative and context-responsive framework that fills the empirical and conceptual gaps left by prior financial literacy models.

This model not only offers a new theoretical understanding of the relationship between financial literacy, gender, and digital innovation, but also holds significant policy implications for promoting financial inclusion and digital empowerment among women in emerging economies.

2.3. Conceptual Framework

Based on the theoretical integration and empirical analysis presented in the previous sections, this study develops a conceptual framework of gender-sensitive financial literacy within the context of digital marketing adoption. The framework is designed to explain the dynamic relationships among financial knowledge, digital trust, behavioral intentions, and social constraints that shape the process of women’s entrepreneurial transformation in developing countries. Accordingly, the model positions financial literacy not only as a cognitive capability, but also as a key driver of sustainable and gender-equitable digital marketing adoption.

The integration of TRA, TAM, KBV, and feminist entrepreneurship theory is analytically necessary because each addresses a distinct mechanism within the capability-development process. TRA explains intention formation; TAM specifies the technological determinants of intention; KBV clarifies how financial knowledge becomes an intangible capability; and Feminist Entrepreneurship Theory contextualizes how gendered norms shape the acquisition and enactment of that capability. Rather than creating theoretical overload, these frameworks operate at different analytical levels and together provide a coherent explanation of the cognitive, behavioral, technological, and socio-structural dynamics underpinning gendered financial literacy. Accordingly, the G-FLCM is proposed as a conceptual capability model that organizes how financial cognition, digital behavior, and gendered social dynamics interact, rather than as a predictive model intended for direct quantitative testing.

Theoretically, this framework is grounded in three core foundations. First, KBVs financial knowledge as a form of intangible capital that functions as a source of innovation and competitive advantage (Grant, 1996; Nonaka et al., 1996). Second, feminist entrepreneurship theory explains that women’s financial and digital decisions do not occur in a neutral space but are shaped by social constraints, cultural values, and structural biases that can both limit and empower women’s agency (Martinez Dy et al., 2024). Third, TRA and TAM provide a framework for understanding the behavioral mechanisms of technology adoption through perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and digital trust (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Sarker et al., 2025).

The integration of these four theories results in a conceptual model that positions women’s financial literacy as a knowledge-based capability that is both transformative and contextual. This literacy not only reflects the ability to manage financial resources but also serves as a social mechanism to strengthen agency, enhance digital participation, and expand entrepreneurial sustainability opportunities. In this model, financial knowledge functions as the primary input that reinforces women’s reflective capacity to understand and utilize technology; digital trust and behavioral intention act as mechanisms that translate knowledge into strategic action; while social constraints serve as the social framework that determines the extent to which these capabilities can be fully realized.

More explicitly, the framework integrates the four theoretical pillars by assigning each theory a distinct functional role within the capability-development process. From the KBV, financial knowledge is conceptualized as the core intangible resource that underpins women entrepreneurs’ analytical and strategic capacity. Feminist Entrepreneurship Theory then contextualizes this resource by highlighting how gendered social structures shape women’s ability to acquire, interpret, and operationalize financial knowledge. TRA contributes by explaining how women’s beliefs and attitudes toward financial and digital practices form behavioral intentions, while TAM clarifies how perceptions of usefulness, ease of use, and digital trust influence whether these intentions are ultimately translated into digital marketing adoption. By connecting resource formation (KBV), contextual conditioning (feminist entrepreneurship theory), intention formation (TRA), and technology adoption mechanisms (TAM), the framework demonstrates a cohesive, sequential, and mutually reinforcing integration of the four theories.

Gendered financial literacy in this study is defined as a financial capability that is formed, constrained, and negotiated within gendered social structures, cultural expectations, and relational power dynamics. Unlike traditional financial literacy—which focuses on budgeting, saving, borrowing, and investment as universal cognitive skills—gendered financial literacy reflects how these skills are shaped, limited, or enabled by women’s specific socio-cultural realities. Accordingly, gendered financial literacy encompasses four interdependent components: financial cognition, digital trust formation, constrained agency, and reflective capability.

To enhance conceptual clarity and ensure replicability, the G-FLCM operationalizes gendered financial literacy through four analytical domains derived from the empirical data:

• Financial cognition—budgeting discipline, saving behavior, loan awareness, investment understanding.
• Digital trust formation—perceptions of safety, trust in digital platforms, perceived fairness of transactions.
• Constrained agency—gender norms, household responsibilities, mobility limitations that shape financial enactment.
• Reflective capability/adaptive learning—learning-by-doing, trial-and-error experimentation, iterative strategic adjustment based on social and digital cues.

These domains collectively demonstrate that women’s financial literacy evolves through cognitive, behavioral, and socio-structural interactions.

The G-FLCM illustrates a sequential capability-development mechanism in which financial cognition provides the cognitive foundation for interpreting opportunities; digital trust formation enables confidence in engaging with technology; behavioral intention bridges cognitive capability and actual adoption; while constrained agency shapes how these processes are enacted within gendered social structures. These mechanisms interact recursively, forming a capability loop through which women iteratively learn, adapt, and strengthen digital entrepreneurship practices.

To avoid conceptual conflation, the framework distinguishes clearly between financial skills and gendered contextual constraints. Gendered constraints are not treated as financial skills, but as conditioning mechanisms that influence how financial skills can be accessed, interpreted, enacted, and transformed. This analytical separation strengthens the clarity and theoretical coherence of the G-FLCM.

To ensure methodological coherence and appropriately position the contribution of this study, it is important to clarify that the G-FLCM is developed as an interpretive and inductively generated framework rather than a predictive or generalizable model. The model synthesizes patterns that emerged consistently across the interview and FGD data—particularly regarding financial knowledge, digital trust, behavioral intention, and social constraints—but it does not claim universal applicability. Instead, it serves as a context-bound conceptual representation of how gendered financial literacy functions within the lived experiences of the women entrepreneurs in this study. The so-called ‘recursive learning loop’ reflects iterative behavioral cycles described by participants (e.g., experimenting with savings strategies, learning from digital trial-and-error, and adjusting practices based on social feedback), which were then abstracted through the qualitative coding process into a conceptual form. Thus, the G-FLCM is epistemologically grounded in qualitative phenomenological–interpretive logic, consistent with the study’s design and analytic orientation.

This study therefore adopts a level-based integration strategy, where TRA and TAM inform behavioral mechanisms (Level 1), KBV and RBV inform capability formation (Level 2), and feminist entrepreneurship theory informs contextual shaping (Level 3). This stratified architecture ensures theoretical clarity, avoids redundancy, and demonstrates how each framework contributes to a distinct component of the G-FLCM.

To ensure theoretical parsimony and avoid construct redundancy, the framework assigns the theories into three complementary analytical levels. At Level 1 (behavioral mechanisms), TRA and TAM explain how women form behavioral intentions and how perceived usefulness, ease of use, and digital trust shape digital marketing adoption. At Level 2 (capability formation), KBV and RBV conceptualize financial literacy as a strategic intangible resource that enables women to build analytical capacity and orchestrate resources for entrepreneurial decision-making. At Level 3 (contextual shaping), feminist entrepreneurship theory explains how gendered norms, social expectations, and structural constraints condition the acquisition, interpretation, and enactment of financial and digital capabilities. This layered architecture demonstrates that the theories are not redundant but perform distinct and sequential functions within the capability-development process.

Additionally, to prevent conceptual overlap, it is essential to clarify that the paired theories in this framework serve complementary—not redundant—roles. TRA and TAM are aligned but not interchangeable: TRA explains intention formation through attitudes and subjective norms, whereas TAM extends this logic by specifying the technological determinants of behavioral intention, namely perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and digital trust. Their combination allows the model to distinguish between general intention formation (TRA) and technology-specific adoption mechanisms (TAM). Similarly, although KBV and RBV both address strategic resources, they operate at different analytical levels. RBV emphasizes the possession of valuable, rare, and inimitable resources, while KBV focuses on the processes through which knowledge is created, transferred, and transformed into capability. Integrating these perspectives enables the model to conceptualize financial literacy not merely as a static resource but as an evolving knowledge-based capability shaped through learning and experience.

Accordingly, this framework emphasizes that women entrepreneurs’ success in the digital era depends on their ability to negotiate social constraints, internalize gendered values, and apply technology in a reflective and adaptive manner. The G-FLCM conceptualizes financial literacy as a gendered, knowledge-based capability that underpins digital trust and behavioral intention, thereby enabling digital marketing adoption and sustainable entrepreneurial practices in emerging economies. As illustrated in Figure 3, the model integrates the dimensions of knowledge, behavior, and social context, positioning financial knowledge as the cognitive foundation, digital trust and intention as behavioral mechanisms, and social constraints as contextual conditions shaping capability transformation toward digital entrepreneurship, business sustainability, and community empowerment.

Figure 3 is designed to illustrate these theoretical linkages in a structured and sequential manner. The left side of the model represents financial knowledge as the foundational cognitive resource, consisting of budgeting, saving, credit management, investment understanding, and risk evaluation. This cognitive foundation influences two key behavioral mechanisms—digital trust and behavioral intention—which operate as the central conduits through which knowledge is transformed into purposeful digital action. Digital trust reflects women’s confidence in the reliability, safety, and fairness of digital marketing platforms, while behavioral intention captures their willingness and readiness to adopt technology in their business practices. The upper layer of the diagram represents social constraints, which function as contextual moderators that can either strengthen or weaken the translation of knowledge and intention into actual adoption. These constraints include gender norms, social expectations, household roles, and institutional barriers. The right side of the model visualizes the outcomes emerging from these interactions: digital entrepreneurship practices, sustainable business performance, and community empowerment. Collectively, the diagram demonstrates how women’s capability formation is shaped by an interplay of cognitive resources, behavioral mechanisms, and sociocultural conditions, ultimately leading to transformative entrepreneurial outcomes in the digital era.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Research Approach and Stages

This study employed a qualitative phenomenological approach to explore how gendered financial literacy influences the process of digital marketing adoption among women entrepreneurs in emerging economies. The phenomenological method was selected to capture the lived experiences, perceptions, and contextual realities of women entrepreneurs in navigating financial and digital transformations. The research was conducted in six stages.

• Problem formulation, resulting in three research questions (RQ) derived from theoretical and empirical gaps identified in the literature.
• Literature review, aimed at identifying the main theoretical foundations, including financial literacy theory, digital consumer behavior theory, and relevant empirical findings from previous studies.
• Research design development, which involved defining the qualitative method, constructing the data collection plan, and identifying suitable informants.
• Instrument design and validation, where the interview guide and focus group discussion (FGD) protocols were constructed and tested for clarity, cultural sensitivity, and contextual relevance.
• Data collection and analysis, integrating in-depth interviews and FGDs with culturally responsive approaches to ensure validity and richness of data.
• Interpretation and conclusion, where emerging patterns were synthesized to address the research questions and derive theoretical and practical implications.

Although the study draws on phenomenological sensitivity to understand lived experiences, it does not employ a strict phenomenological methodology. Instead, the research follows a multi-informant qualitative thematic analysis design, which permits broader sample diversity and integrates multiple data sources to enhance analytical triangulation. This approach is widely used in entrepreneurship and development studies where the aim is to capture multi-layered social, behavioral, and contextual dynamics rather than to generate purely idiographic accounts.

This sequential research process follows Creswell and Creswell (2017) qualitative spiral model, which emphasizes the dynamic and iterative interaction between data, theory, and context. Each stage was designed to move reflexively between empirical observation and conceptual refinement, allowing emerging themes to inform subsequent analytical decisions. Through repeated cycles of data collection, coding, and interpretation, the study achieved theoretical saturation—where no new patterns or meanings emerged—while maintaining contextual richness and cultural sensitivity. This iterative approach ensured that the resulting conceptual understanding of gendered financial literacy was both theoretically grounded and empirically nuanced, reflecting the lived realities of women entrepreneurs within the socio-digital transformation context of emerging economies.

3.2. Informants, Data Collection, and Ethical Approval

This qualitative research was conducted in Makassar City, Indonesia, a strategic urban hub in Eastern Indonesia characterized by rapid digital transformation and the growing participation of women in SMEs. Makassar was purposefully chosen because it represents an emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem where traditional gender norms, financial capability, and digital adaptation intersect—making it a relevant empirical setting to explore gendered financial literacy and digital marketing adoption among women entrepreneurs.

Informants were selected using theoretical and purposive sampling, prioritizing their ability to provide rich, diverse, and theoretically meaningful insights (N. Gupta & Mirchandani, 2018). The study involved a total of 75 informants, consisting of 45 women SME owners and 30 supporting stakeholders, including representatives from government agencies, microfinance institutions, digital platform partners, entrepreneurial mentors, and consumer groups.

The women SME informants represented a variety of subsectors, such as culinary, fashion, creative crafts, beauty and wellness services, and digital-based service enterprises, distributed across multiple subdistricts in Makassar. This heterogeneity ensured a nuanced understanding of how financial literacy, social structures, and digital trust operate across distinct business contexts.

Primary data were collected through in-depth interviews and FGDs, applying a culturally responsive teaching (CRT) approach to ensure inclusivity, contextual sensitivity, and authentic representation of participants’ lived experiences. Data collection spanned six months, combining reflective dialog and narrative exploration to capture the social and cognitive dimensions of women’s entrepreneurial practices.

The in-depth interviews with women entrepreneurs were conducted using a semi-structured format, allowing participants to describe their financial practices, digital engagement, and social experiences with minimal researcher interference. Interviews lasted between 45 and 90 min and were held either at participants’ business locations or through online platforms when mobility was limited. The interview guide covered five key domains: entrepreneurial background, financial literacy practices, digital marketing experiences, gendered constraints, and perceptions of business sustainability (see Appendix A,

Table A1. Interview guide mapped to conceptual and analytical domains.

Domain	Purpose of Exploration	Guiding Questions
Financial cognition	To explore women’s basic financial knowledge, reasoning, and daily financial practices.	Can you describe how you manage your business finances on a daily basis? How do you make decisions about saving, spending, and using capital? What has been your experience with loans or credit? How do you assess financial risks? Do you keep financial records? How important is this practice for you? How do you make investment-related decisions for your business? What personal values, beliefs, or social norms influence the way you make financial decisions?
Digital trust formation	To understand how women develop trust in digital platforms, financial technologies, and online transactions.	7. What was your first experience using digital platforms (social media, e-commerce, digital payments)? 8. What makes you feel safe or unsafe when conducting digital transactions? 9. How do you evaluate the reliability of digital platforms for business purposes? 10. Has there been a moment or experience that increased or decreased your trust in digital systems? 11. How much do your friends, peers, or fellow entrepreneurs influence your trust in digital tools?
Constrained agency (Gendered constraints)	To capture social, cultural, and structural constraints that shape financial and digital capability.	12. How do family responsibilities affect the time and focus you can dedicate to your business? 13. Have you ever felt that certain gender norms limit your business or financial decision-making? 14. Do you experience mobility or access constraints in running your business? 15. Which social or cultural expectations most influence your financial behavior? 16. Have you experienced any institutional barriers (from banks, government agencies, or digital platforms) related to finance or digital marketing? If so, how?
Reflective capability/adaptive learning	To explore how women learn, adapt, and reflect on financial and digital practices.	17. How did you learn to use digital tools or online marketing strategies? 18. Have you experienced mistakes or failures in digital practices? What did you learn from them? 19. How do you assess information or feedback you receive from customers or digital platforms? 20. How do you adjust your strategies over time? 21. Can you share an example where you modified your strategy after observing past results?
Digital marketing practices	To identify how financial literacy translates into digital marketing adoption and adaptation.	22. How do you allocate your budget for digital promotion? 23. Which digital marketing strategies do you use most often? 24. How do you evaluate the effectiveness of your ads or content? 25. Do you use any insights (engagement, comments, sales trends) to adjust your strategy? 26. Which digital indicators (e.g., chats, likes, visits, orders) do you most pay attention to when adjusting your marketing strategy?
Business sustainability and outcomes	To understand outcomes related to resilience, competitiveness, and long-term sustainability.	27. How do you maintain business continuity during difficult times or slow seasons? 28. Do you have a reinvestment or financial planning strategy for ensuring business stability? 29. How does digital marketing help sustain or improve your business performance? 30. How do you perceive the relationship between financial literacy and your business resilience?

).

The study also conducted 30 stakeholder interviews with representatives from government agencies, microfinance institutions, digital service providers, SME mentors, and consumer communities. These interviews provided institutional and ecosystem-level perspectives that enabled methodological triangulation and contextual validation of women’s narratives.

To enhance analytic rigor, stakeholder narratives were not treated as a single homogeneous data category. Instead, they were coded separately based on stakeholder type—government officers, microfinance and banking representatives, digital platform partners, entrepreneurial mentors, and community trainers. Their role in the analysis was primarily to provide methodological and contextual triangulation, validating and enriching the themes emerging from women entrepreneurs’ accounts rather than serving as an integrated analytical group. This disaggregation strengthens internal validity and prevents analytic oversimplification.

In addition, four FGDs were organized, each consisting of 6–8 participants. Two FGDs included women entrepreneurs segmented by business maturity (early-stage and growth-stage), while two FGDs involved mixed stakeholder groups. The sessions were facilitated using an FGD protocol that explored shared constraints, digital trust formation, financial decision-making patterns, and gendered expectations within the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The discussions lasted approximately 60–90 min and generated rich comparative insights regarding collective experiences and social norms.

Visual materials—including photographs of business activities, digital storefronts, screenshots of online customer interactions, transaction logs, and marketing layouts—were collected to complement the interview data. These materials served as contextual artifacts that strengthened data interpretation, validated participant claims, and enabled multimodal triangulation of entrepreneurial practices.

The sample size of 75 informants was determined following the principle of thematic saturation, achieved when no new conceptual insights emerged after iterative cycles of data analysis. According to Creswell and Creswell (2017) and Guest et al. (2020), such sample breadth—balanced between key participants and supporting actors—is optimal for phenomenological inquiry, allowing both depth of individual narratives and variation across socio-economic and sectoral contexts.

Theoretical saturation was further assessed through a structured three-cycle coding process. In the first cycle, open coding generated initial conceptual categories across women entrepreneurs’ interviews. The second cycle involved axial coding, comparing categories across entrepreneur and stakeholder datasets to evaluate convergence and thematic variation. A saturation grid was employed to track code recurrence, theme stabilization, and the absence of new conceptual properties. During the third cycle, no new themes emerged in the final five entrepreneur interviews or the last two stakeholder sessions, indicating conceptual saturation. This procedure aligns with contemporary qualitative rigor standards that emphasize conceptual stabilization rather than numerical thresholds in determining saturation.

Ethical clearance was obtained from the Research and Community Service Institute of Universitas Negeri Makassar under Approval Letter No. 3089/UN36.11/TU/2024. All participants were fully informed of the research purpose and voluntarily provided written consent prior to participation.

To ensure trustworthiness, the study employed methodological and source triangulation—cross-informant validation, peer debriefing, and reflexive memoing—strengthening the credibility, dependability, and confirmability of findings while maintaining cultural and gender sensitivity throughout the analytical process.

3.3. Focus of Study

Grounded in the conceptual framework of G-FLCM, this study focuses on the multidimensional relationship between financial literacy and digital marketing adoption among women entrepreneurs in emerging economies. The investigation seeks to uncover how financial knowledge, resource management, and social constraints interact to shape women’s digital entrepreneurial behavior and sustainability practices. Five core thematic areas were explored to capture the complex intersections between knowledge, behavior, and social context:

• General financial knowledge—encompassing women’s understanding of fundamental financial concepts, access to financial products, and utilization of technology-based financial services as cognitive capital for business innovation.
• Savings behavior—exploring motives, strategies, and challenges of managing savings amidst the dual financial responsibilities of household and business obligations.
• Loan management—focusing on women’s access to credit, perceptions of financial risk, and decision-making logic in supporting business expansion and stability.
• Investment capability—examining how women entrepreneurs adopt investment as a resilience and sustainability strategy to ensure long-term business continuity.
• Digital marketing literacy—assessing how entrepreneurs leverage social media, e-commerce platforms, and online communication channels to enhance competitiveness, customer engagement, and digital trust.

This multidimensional focus acknowledges that women entrepreneurs in emerging economies often operate within socially embedded financial structures that require balancing cognitive literacy, behavioral adaptability, and digital innovation capacity simultaneously. The mapping of research concepts, focus areas, and corresponding data sources is presented in

Table 2. Research concepts, focus, and data sources.

No.	Concept	Research Focus	Data Source
1	Financial literacy	Financial knowledge, financial products, use of digital tools	Key and Supporting Informants
2	Savings	Saving behavior, strategies, and challenges	Key and Supporting Informants
3	Loans	Types, risks, and implications of borrowing	Key and Supporting Informants
4	Investment	Forms of investment, risk perception	Key and Supporting Informants
5	Digital marketing	Benefits, strategies, and tools used	Key and Supporting Informants

, which highlights the multidimensional structure of the study and its alignment with the conceptual framework.

3.4. Data Analysis Procedures

The qualitative data were analyzed through spiral model of qualitative data analysis (Creswell & Creswell, 2017), which emphasizes continuous interaction between data, reflection, and interpretation to ensure analytical depth and theoretical coherence throughout the study. This iterative process involved several interrelated stages.

First, data management and organization were conducted, including the transcription of interviews, FGD notes, and visual materials. Second, the reading and memoing phase enabled the researchers to immerse themselves in the data and identify emerging meanings and contextual nuances. Third, descriptive and interpretive coding was carried out to classify data into thematic clusters that aligned with the research objectives and conceptual framework.

The analytical cycle further proceeded through four interpretive lenses:

• Objectivity, achieved by cross-checking patterns across informants;
• Creativity, through interpretive abstraction of experiential meanings;
• External validation, ensured via peer and expert review;
• Reliability, maintained through transparent documentation and traceability between raw data and conceptual interpretation.

In developing the conceptual model, the analysis also followed a generative qualitative modeling procedure inspired by the Gioia methodology (Gioia et al., 2013). This involved systematically mapping first-order codes derived from participants’ raw expressions, organizing them into second-order themes through interpretive abstraction, and integrating them into aggregate dimensions that reflect higher-order conceptual patterns. This structured coding pathway ensured that the emergent components of the G-FLCM—including financial cognition, digital trust, behavioral intention, social constraints, and iterative learning—were grounded directly in the data rather than imposed deductively from existing theory. The Gioia-oriented approach thus provided methodological rigor and transparency in linking participants’ lived experiences with the model’s conceptual architecture, reinforcing the inductive and interpretive nature of the study.

The development of the G-FLCM followed a structured, inductive model-building process using Creswell’s spiral cycle and a modified Gioia analytical procedure. First, open coding generated first-order concepts based on participants’ narratives regarding financial practices, digital experiences, and gendered constraints. Second, axial coding consolidated these concepts into second-order themes by examining patterns that reflected cognitive, behavioral, and socio-structural mechanisms. Third, selective coding integrated these themes into four aggregate dimensions—financial cognition, digital trust formation, constrained agency, and reflective capability. These dimensions formed the theoretical foundation of the G-FLCM. The model was refined iteratively through cross-case comparison, stakeholder triangulation, and saturation checks to ensure conceptual coherence and empirical grounding.

To enhance methodological transparency, it is important to clarify that the categorization of women’s financial literacy into “basic, intermediate, and strategic” levels was not pre-defined but emerged inductively from the coding process (see Appendix A,

Table A2. Coding schema (Gioia framework).

1st-Order Concepts	2nd-Order Themes	Aggregate Dimensions
Daily financial recording; disciplined saving behavior; loan avoidance due to risk; cautious small-scale investment attempts	Financial cognition practices	Financial cognition
Trust-building through peer experiences; gradual comfort with digital banking; perceived platform safety; trust in fairness of transactions	Digital trust formation	Digital trust
Adjusting ads based on chats or likes; simple monitoring of sales trends; trial-and-error digital promotions; perceived data-based adjustments	Basic analytical orientation	Behavioral intention and analytical adjustment
Husband permission for loans; household duties limiting business time; cultural norms discouraging risk; mobility restrictions	Gendered constraints	Constrained agency
Learning-by-doing; feedback-driven improvement; reflective evaluation; monthly review of outcomes	Reflective capability	Reflective capability/adaptive learning
Adoption of digital platforms; active social media selling; improved competitiveness; stronger customer engagement	Digital entrepreneurship behaviors	Digital entrepreneurship outcomes
Stabilized revenue; increased ROI; sustainable operations during uncertainty	Business sustainability indicators	Sustainable business outcomes
Helping other women; community sharing; peer mentoring	Community-oriented empowerment	Community empowerment

). During axial coding, variations in financial cognition, behavioral enactment, and capability expression were grouped into progressively complex clusters. Selective coding subsequently consolidated these clusters into three analytical levels that represent different degrees of financial–digital capability. Typical cases were used to inform these distinctions—for example, participants who demonstrated only routine budgeting and saving behaviors were categorized at the basic level, whereas those who combined financial reasoning with reflective digital experimentation were identified at the strategic level. As such, the three levels reflect patterned differences found in the data rather than externally imposed categories, aligning with the phenomenological and inductive orientation of the study.

Finally, the process culminated in the visual and textual representation of findings in the form of thematic matrices, conceptual trees, and synthesized propositions that informed the development of the G-FLCM. This analytical pathway ensured continuous reflexivity and conceptual alignment between empirical insights and theoretical propositions.

4. Results

This section presents the phenomenological analysis of the experiences of 75 participants, consisting of 45 women entrepreneurs (coded W01–W45) and 30 stakeholders (coded S01–S30), including representatives from banks, cooperatives, training institutions, SME offices, and digital platform providers. The analysis followed Creswell and Creswell (2017) qualitative spiral approach, encompassing stages of data organization, intensive reading, descriptive–interpretive coding, and cross-source thematic synthesis. Five key themes emerged, each addressing the Research Questions (RQ1–RQ3) and serving as the foundation for constructing the G-FLCM.

4.1. Financial Knowledge as a Strategic Capability (RQ1)

The first finding indicates that women entrepreneurs’ financial literacy develops across three levels: basic, intermediate, and strategic. At the basic level, participants begin to understand the importance of financial record-keeping and separating personal and business finances. Most informants fall into the intermediate level, where such knowledge is applied to monitor cash flow and make operational decisions. A smaller group has reached the strategic level, demonstrating the ability to analyze simple financial data to set prices, manage inventory, and plan digital promotions.

As explained by W12 (fashion), “I started recording every night in Excel, so I can see which products sell quickly.” Similarly, W03 (culinary) shared, “I separate family and business accounts to see the net profit.” W25 (crafts) added, “Manual notes are okay, but now I’m trying a cashier app to be more efficient.” From the stakeholder side, S10 (cooperative) stated, “Most women already separate their cash, although profit–loss reports remain simple.” S17 (SME department) added, “In the last FGD, many participants were already familiar with QRIS and e-wallets—this is positive progress over the past two years.”

Insights from the FGDs further reinforced the layered development of women’s financial literacy. Participants collectively described a shift from basic to more structured practices as they learned from peers and compared experiences during group discussions. In FGD1, several women noted that hearing how others tracked expenses or used simple digital tools motivated them to adopt similar practices. One participant stated, “After listening to the others, I realized my notes were too messy—so I started using the cashier app they recommended.” In FGD2, participants emphasized that understanding cash flow is not merely a technical skill but a shared learning process shaped by routine discussions within their business communities. These collective reflections illustrate that financial capability development is influenced not only by individual initiative but also by peer-driven social learning.

These findings demonstrate that financial knowledge is not static, but rather the result of social learning and practical experience. Thus, financial literacy functions as a strategic, knowledge-based capability that enables data-driven decision-making rather than intuition alone.

From a theoretical perspective, these findings reinforce KBV’s conceptualization of knowledge as an intangible strategic resource that is continuously refined through practice and social interaction. The progression from basic to strategic literacy reflects an emergent capability-building process rather than a static skill set. The peer-driven learning observed in the FGDs aligns with feminist entrepreneurship theory, which emphasizes that women’s financial practices are socially embedded and shaped by collective learning within gendered networks. Moreover, as women begin to translate financial records into actionable decisions, the pattern corresponds to TRA’s mechanism of intention formation—where attitudes shaped by prior financial experiences influence subsequent behavior. Their gradual adoption of cashier apps, QRIS, and digital records also mirrors TAM’s propositions regarding the role of perceived usefulness and ease of use in shaping technology-related decisions. Together, these findings demonstrate that financial literacy functions not merely as a cognitive asset but as a layered, socially mediated capability that forms the foundational domain of the G-FLCM. These empirical patterns collectively constitute the input layer of the G-FLCM, forming the foundational financial cognition from which women’s digital capability development subsequently emerges.

4.2. Implementation of Financial Literacy in Women-Managed SMEs (RQ2)

4.2.1. Savings as Everyday Resilience

Saving emerged as the strongest dimension of financial literacy in this study. The practice of saving was not merely about accumulating money but functioned as a resilience strategy for coping with business fluctuations. Most women entrepreneurs applied principles such as pay-yourself-first, a 70/30 income split system, and the use of digital wallets for daily micro-savings.

W18 (services) explained, “When sales drop, I use emergency funds first—I don’t panic or borrow.” Similarly, W07 (culinary) shared, “I’ve made it a habit to pay myself a salary so the rest can go to business savings.” This was reinforced by S09 (cooperative), who noted, “Women are more disciplined in setting aside small but consistent profits.” An FGD facilitator (S20) added, “The 70/30 method keeps being mentioned in every training—it’s proven quite effective.” However, challenges persist. W14 (crafts) lamented, “Income is unstable, sometimes all earnings go to household needs.” Likewise, W32 (laundry) emphasized, “Children’s education remains the priority, so business investment is sometimes delayed.”

Insights from the FGDs further confirmed that saving practices are shaped not only by individual discipline but also by collective norms that guide how women cope with financial uncertainty. In FGD1, several participants described how mutual encouragement within their groups helped them maintain micro-saving routines, including tips about digital wallets, cashback schemes, or informal savings groups. One participant shared, “If my friends in the group report their savings progress, I feel encouraged to do the same—it keeps us accountable.” FGD2 discussions revealed that saving is widely perceived as a form of emotional security, enabling women to manage the stress of fluctuating income and household responsibilities. This illustrates that saving is enacted not merely as an economic activity but as a socially negotiated practice embedded in women’s day-to-day financial resilience strategies.

This phenomenon highlights that saving practices represent a negotiation between economic responsibilities and domestic expectations, aligning with feminist entrepreneurship theory, which emphasizes how gendered social roles shape women’s financial behaviors and resilience strategies.

These empirical patterns illustrate how savings routines strengthen women’s perceived financial security, which subsequently increases their willingness to experiment with digital payment tools such as e-wallets and QR transactions. This connection between saving behavior and emerging digital trust represents a core mechanism within the process layer of the G-FLCM.

4.2.2. Credit Use: Opportunity Under Caution

Attitudes toward loans were found to be ambivalent—participants recognized the benefits of financing but remained cautious about the risks of installments and interest. Among the 45 women entrepreneurs, only a few actively utilized microcredit schemes (KUR) or cooperative loans. W05 (crafts) shared, “KUR was helpful at the beginning, but the interest rate and collateral made me think twice.” Similarly, W31 (beauty services) stated, “Using my house as collateral just makes me stressed thinking about the installments.” From the financial institution’s perspective, S04 (bank) explained, “Female clients with neat cash records are easier to approve, but many still refuse because they fear default risks.” These findings indicate that for women entrepreneurs, financial literacy regarding loans is not only about access to financial institutions but also about risk management and psychological well-being. Their financial decisions are therefore reflective and context-sensitive, rather than purely rational-economic in nature.

The FGDs further highlighted that hesitancy toward credit is shaped not only by individual financial considerations but also by collective narratives within women’s social networks. In FGD3, several participants described hearing stories of friends or relatives who struggled with loan repayments, which reinforced a shared sense of caution. One participant noted, “When someone in our circle fails to pay, the whole group becomes scared of taking loans.” In FGD4, women emphasized that emotional stress associated with debt—especially when linked to household assets—was a major factor influencing their decisions. Some participants also discussed preferring informal, interest-free lending circles because they felt safer borrowing from people they trusted. These collective reflections show that credit-related decision-making is embedded in social learning and group-level risk perceptions, underscoring that caution toward loans is as much a socio-cultural phenomenon as it is a financial calculation.

Interpreted through feminist entrepreneurship theory, these dynamics illustrate how gendered expectations—particularly women’s responsibility for household stability—amplify perceived risk and shape cautious financial behavior. From a TRA perspective, subjective norms within women’s social networks reinforce collective risk aversion, thereby influencing behavioral intention to avoid formal credit. This positions credit use not merely as a financial competency but as a gendered decision space negotiated at the intersection of emotional security, family obligations, and social influence.

These findings demonstrate that women’s cautious credit behavior directly shapes their digital financial trust formation, as low perceived risk tolerance often delays the adoption of digital lending platforms. This risk-filtering process forms a key component of the process layer in the G-FLCM.

4.2.3. Investment for Stability and Growth

Investment emerged as an indicator of financial literacy maturity. The entrepreneurs were not only saving but also beginning to consider how to grow their business assets. The types of investments identified included purchasing business equipment, gold savings, deposits, and education funds. W09 (laundry) stated, “A new machine makes work faster and less tiring.” W22 (culinary) added, “Gold is easy to sell when I need capital.” W39 (fashion) observed, “Deposits help me avoid spending business money carelessly.” From the mentor’s side, S21 confirmed, “Upgrading equipment directly improves productivity.” Likewise, S05 (bank officer) noted, “Many women entrepreneurs are now starting to invest in gold, especially after inflation.” Thus, investment serves a dual function—as a business development strategy and a financial risk mitigation mechanism. This finding underscores the resource orchestration dimension of the KBV, where entrepreneurs strategically manage financial assets and experience to create sustainable competitive advantage.

The FGDs provided additional insight into how women collectively interpret and negotiate investment decisions. In FGD1, several participants described discussing investment options—such as gold savings or installment-based equipment purchases—with peers before making decisions, suggesting that investment behaviors are often socially validated rather than made in isolation. One participant noted, “I only bought new equipment after hearing how it helped others reduce costs.” In FGD3, discussions revealed that many women viewed investment as a long-term stability strategy, particularly in response to rising inflation and unpredictable household expenses. Participants also expressed that group conversations helped them distinguish between productive investment and unnecessary spending. These collective reflections demonstrate that investment literacy develops not only from personal experience but also from shared learning within entrepreneurial networks, reinforcing its role as a socially informed strategic capability.

Interpreted through KBV, these findings indicate that women entrepreneurs convert experiential knowledge and peer-informed insights into structured investment decisions—reflecting an emerging capability for resource accumulation and long-term planning. From a feminist entrepreneurship perspective, investment choices also represent a negotiation of household responsibilities and business aspirations, revealing how gendered expectations shape the scope and timing of financial risk-taking. Moreover, consistent with the G-FLCM, these patterns demonstrate the operation of reflective capability, where women iteratively evaluate financial options, learn from community narratives, and adjust investment strategies based on both economic cues and social validation.

These investment patterns reveal how knowledge-based evaluation enables women to assess digital financial tools for savings, purchasing, and asset management, thereby strengthening capability transfer from financial cognition to digital decision-making. This mechanism directly contributes to the process layer of the G-FLCM.

Together, the themes identified in RQ2 constitute the process layer of the G-FLCM, showing how women translate financial literacy into digital practices through mechanisms of savings-driven confidence, risk-filtered credit behavior, and knowledge-based investment evaluation. These mechanisms explain how financial cognition evolves into digital engagement within women-managed SMEs.

4.3. Gender-Sensitive Financial Literacy and Digital Marketing Adoption (RQ3)

Building upon the empirical patterns identified in RQ1 and RQ2—which reveal women entrepreneurs’ cognitive understanding and operational application of financial literacy—this section advances the analysis by exploring how such literacy evolves into a gender-sensitive capability that drives digital marketing adoption. In this way, financial literacy is conceptualized not merely as a cognitive skill but as a transformative, socially embedded process enabling reflective technology use, strategic decision-making, and entrepreneurial empowerment in the digital era. Based on the theoretical integration and empirical evidence presented earlier, the findings align with the conceptual foundations of the KBV, feminist entrepreneurship theory, and the behavioral mechanisms of the TRA and TAM. Through this integration, women’s financial literacy emerges as a multidimensional resource that bridges cognitive reasoning, trust-building, and socially negotiated digital participation.

4.3.1. Financial Knowledge as Cognitive Foundation

Women entrepreneurs’ financial knowledge serves as the cognitive foundation for understanding and applying digital marketing tools. Informants frequently connected their financial decision-making ability with data interpretation in digital contexts, demonstrating a transition from intuitive to evidence-based entrepreneurship. W33 (cosmetics) reflected, “After learning to read my monthly balance sheet, I felt more confident to pay for Instagram ads because I could see the return.” Similarly, W10 (handicraft) noted, “Recording online sales helps me calculate which platform is most profitable.” From the stakeholder side, S26 (digital trainer) stated, “Once they understand margin and cost structures, women use data to target customers instead of guessing.”

These findings confirm that financial literacy cultivates analytical thinking, enabling women to perceive technology not as a risky or unfamiliar tool but as a strategic instrument for decision-making. This aligns directly with TAM’s dimension of perceived usefulness, while also reflecting KBV’s view that knowledge functions as an intangible asset that strengthens competitive advantage and innovation capacity.

The FGDs further demonstrated how financial knowledge supports digital strategy formation through collective learning mechanisms. In FGD1, participants compared online sales data and discussed how different platforms generated varying engagement and profit levels. One entrepreneur shared, “When we look at our numbers together, we see patterns we didn’t notice alone—like which promo works best or which day brings the highest sales.” In FGD2, women explained that understanding financial metrics increased their confidence to experiment with digital tools such as ads, boosted posts, and analytics dashboards.

Participants noted that peer discussions helped demystify digital marketing, shifting their mindset from trial-and-error to intentional, data-informed decision-making. These insights show that cognitive capability is strengthened not only through individual skills but also through collective interpretation, social validation, and shared sense-making. This process reinforces the foundational role of financial literacy within the G-FLCM, demonstrating how knowledge becomes actionable capability through socially embedded learning. These patterns demonstrate the cognitive mechanism through which financial literacy forms the input layer of the G-FLCM, showing how financial reasoning becomes the foundation for analytical interpretation, digital confidence, and strategic marketing decisions.

4.3.2. Digital Trust as a Behavioral Mechanism

The progression from financial awareness to digital adoption is mediated by digital trust—the confidence that enables women to translate financial understanding into technological engagement. W07 (culinary) shared, “I started using QRIS after seeing other women use it safely in our community.” W29 (services) added, “I use WhatsApp Business because customers trust chat records and digital receipts.” From a stakeholder’s perspective, S22 (community mentor) emphasized, “When women see peers successfully using digital payment, their confidence grows faster than through formal training.” These findings highlight that trust is not a purely individual attribute but a relational construct shaped through observation, peer interaction, and shared validation. This dynamic reflects TRA’s emphasis on subjective norms and the relational orientation of feminist entrepreneurship theory, illustrating that women’s adoption behavior is strongly influenced by collective experience and social proof.

The FGDs strengthened this interpretation by revealing how digital trust emerges through collective sense-making and community-level endorsement. In FGD2, participants explained that their willingness to adopt digital payment tools increased when trusted peers demonstrated the features directly—such as how QRIS transactions are recorded or how buyer complaints can be traced. One woman noted, “Just watching others use it in front of me made me feel it was safe.” In FGD4, several entrepreneurs described evaluating digital platforms together before adoption, comparing perceived risks and discussing past negative experiences. These shared evaluations reduced uncertainty and normalized the use of digital tools. Participants also emphasized that digital trust improves when success stories circulate within their community, reinforcing a shared belief that digital platforms are reliable and beneficial. This collective interpretive process shows that digital trust functions as a socially constructed mechanism that bridges financial cognition and technology adoption. These findings represent the behavioral mechanism of the G-FLCM, illustrating how digital trust transforms financial cognition into actionable digital adoption and forms the central dynamic of the model’s process layer.

4.3.3. Behavioral Intention and Reflective Digital Use

Beyond trust, behavioral intention is shaped by women’s reflective judgment—the ability to align digital adoption with personal, financial, and social realities. W40 (cosmetics) described, “I post stories and link them to WhatsApp for direct orders and payments through QRIS.” W24 (fashion) added, “I schedule my online promotions after my children’s school time.” These examples reveal that digital marketing behaviors are negotiated acts rather than uniform responses to technology. Through financial reasoning and contextual adaptation, women develop reflective digital practices that balance efficiency with life priorities. As S17 (government official) explained, “Women entrepreneurs adapt technology to their rhythm of life; it’s not resistance—it’s intelligent prioritization.” Such findings illustrate that behavioral intention is not a fixed predictor of adoption but a contextualized process mediated by reflection, agency, and social negotiation—supporting feminist perspectives on adaptive entrepreneurship.

The FGDs further emphasized that behavioral intention emerges through collective experimentation and collaborative problem-solving. In FGD2, women shared strategies for managing digital tasks alongside domestic responsibilities, such as batching content creation, automating promotional posts, or coordinating online activities with household routines. One participant said, “We adjust our digital marketing to our daily schedule—otherwise it becomes overwhelming.” Meanwhile, FGD4 revealed that intention to adopt specific digital tools often strengthens after group discussions where participants compare their challenges and successes. Several women noted that hearing peers explain how they overcame time constraints, customer complaints, or platform confusion helped them refine their own digital routines. These discussions show that reflective digital use is shaped not only by individual agency but also by shared learning and supportive social environments.

These collective and reflective behavioral processes demonstrate that intention formation in women’s digital adoption is not linear but emerges through an iterative negotiation of cognitive, relational, and structural factors—an interplay that aligns with TRA’s dynamic intention pathways and feminist perspectives on adaptive, context-sensitive agency. These insights demonstrate how reflective intention acts as a mediating capability within the G-FLCM, linking digital trust to sustained digital engagement and showing that adoption evolves through iterative reflection rather than linear decision-making.

4.3.4. Social Constraints as Contextual Framework

The role of social constraints—time, family obligations, limited digital access, and cultural expectations—emerged as both barriers and catalysts for capability development. W15 (culinary) said, “Profit often goes to family needs, so I plan online ads only after covering essentials.” W28 (salon) mentioned, “Sometimes, my husband uses my phone, so I have to reschedule online work.” Meanwhile, S14 (training facilitator) observed, “Cultural expectations shape when and how women engage online, but they creatively balance both roles.” These findings indicate that rather than being purely restrictive, social constraints act as adaptive filters through which women refine priorities, sustain motivation, and create contextually sustainable entrepreneurship. In this sense, constraints can transform into sources of creativity and resilience, embodying the empowerment-through-context principle of feminist entrepreneurship theory.

Insights from the FGDs further illustrated that social constraints are negotiated collectively within women’s business communities. In FGD1, participants openly compared how they managed competing demands—such as childcare, food preparation, and online business tasks—and exchanged strategies to maintain digital consistency despite interruptions. One participant explained, “We remind each other that it’s okay to work slower; what matters is staying consistent.” In FGD3, women described how cultural expectations around availability and domestic roles influenced their online engagement patterns, yet group discussions helped them reframe these constraints as manageable rhythms rather than fixed limitations. Several women noted that hearing how peers adapted—such as scheduling digital work during quiet household hours or sharing devices creatively—helped them generate their own context-fitting solutions. These collective reflections reveal that constraints are not endured in isolation; they are continuously interpreted, managed, and transformed through shared dialog and mutual support. These collective interpretations show that social constraints constitute the contextual layer of the G-FLCM, shaping how capability formation, trust building, and adoption behaviors unfold within gendered environments. By integrating constraints as adaptive filters rather than simple barriers, the model captures the sociocultural negotiation through which women refine financial–digital capability.

Collectively, the themes identified in RQ3 constitute the outcome and feedback layers of the G-FLCM. They illustrate how cognitive capability (financial knowledge), behavioral mechanisms (digital trust and reflective intention), and contextual negotiation (social constraints) converge to produce sustainable digital entrepreneurship. These empirically grounded mechanisms demonstrate how women transform financial literacy into digital capability, completing the sequential logic of the G-FLCM.

4.4. Synthesis and Model Development

This section integrates the qualitative findings into a synthesized conceptual model that explains how women entrepreneurs’ financial literacy evolves into a strategic capability supporting digital marketing adoption and business sustainability. The synthesis aligns directly with RQ1–RQ3, illustrating the transformation from financial cognition (knowing) → digital action (doing) → entrepreneurial sustainability (becoming). The analysis revealed three major stages—input (TRA lens), process (TAM lens), and output (Sustainability lens)—culminating in the G-FLCM.

To ensure that each component of the G-FLCM is empirically grounded rather than theoretically imposed, a structured synthesis process was conducted by aligning first-order codes, axial themes, and representative quotations across women entrepreneurs and stakeholder narratives. Financial knowledge, savings, loan logic, and investment capability emerged as stable first-order codes that clustered into the cognitive–attitudinal foundation of the model (RQ1). Digital trust, budgeting-based experimentation, and perceived usefulness consistently appeared in axial themes linked to technology adoption behaviors (RQ2). Behavioral intention and adaptive digital practices were derived from repeated narratives describing step-by-step decision cycles. Social constraints and capability negotiation were coded inductively from cross-informant convergence, particularly in FGDs. The recursive learning loop was not theoretically assumed; it emerged from participants’ repeated descriptions of reviewing outcomes, adjusting strategies, and re-engaging in financial–digital practices—forming a naturally occurring experiential cycle. This transparent derivation process ensures that each model component is firmly anchored in the qualitative evidence rather than functioning as a purely conceptual abstraction.

4.4.1. Input Stage—Financial Literacy as Cognitive and Attitudinal Foundation (RQ1)

Findings from the interviews and FGD confirm that women entrepreneurs exhibit four primary domains of financial literacy: financial knowledge, savings discipline, loan awareness, and investment orientation. These domains serve as the cognitive and attitudinal base for entrepreneurial behavior, corresponding to the TRA which emphasizes how beliefs and attitudes shape intention. Participants consistently described that they have improved their record-keeping and financial understanding through experience and peer learning.

For instance, one participant stated: “I record every transaction daily and check my balance every week using an app; it helps me understand where my business stands.” (W12, fashion sector). Another respondent reflected the attitudinal aspect: “I prefer using my savings to expand my business rather than taking loans. It feels safer and keeps me disciplined.” (W28, culinary sector). These narratives highlight that women’s financial cognition is guided not merely by financial products, but by values of prudence, responsibility, and control. Moreover, supporting stakeholders (S07, microfinance officer) confirmed that “Women tend to plan cautiously and avoid high-risk borrowing, showing strong financial self-control.” Hence, women entrepreneurs’ financial knowledge and attitudes constitute a gendered capability that blends cognition, emotion, and moral reasoning in business finance.

Proposition 1 (P1).

Women entrepreneurs’ financial literacy—encompassing knowledge, savings discipline, and investment awareness—forms a cognitive-attitudinal foundation that drives their intention to manage and grow their businesses responsibly.

4.4.2. Process Stage—Translating Financial Literacy into Digital Marketing Practice (RQ2)

At the process stage, findings demonstrate how women entrepreneurs operationalize financial literacy into digital marketing strategies, guided by the TAM. Participants emphasized that their budgeting and decision-making are increasingly data-driven and digitally mediated.

To avoid overstating analytical sophistication, these practices are better understood not as fully “data-driven decisions” but as emerging analytical orientations, where women entrepreneurs make perceived data-based adjustments using simple digital cues such as sales trends, customer chats, or post engagement. Participants generally described learning-by-doing processes rather than formal analytics. As one entrepreneur shared, “I don’t calculate deeply, but when I see fewer chats, I change my promo strategy” (W18, culinary sector). Another explained, “I only check which posts get more likes, then I post similar ones” (W33, craft sector). These narratives demonstrate basic analytic practices grounded in experiential learning, aligning with the gradual capability-building processes described in TAM.

This emerging analytical orientation is also reflected in how women plan and allocate their digital marketing budgets in practical, experience-based ways. For example, a participant explained: “I allocate part of my profits for digital promotion on Instagram and Shopee Ads every month. It’s cheaper than offline ads but brings more orders.” (W03, beauty products).

Another highlighted the analytical mindset: “We no longer guess; I monitor customer responses and adjust the ad budget weekly.” (W37, handicraft sector). Supporting informants (S12, marketing trainer) added that women entrepreneurs “are learning to analyze sales insights and reallocate funds digitally—a new form of financial-digital literacy.”

These findings reveal that financial awareness acts as an enabler of digital trust and adaptive decision-making. Women apply their budgeting discipline to experiment with e-commerce, social media advertising, and digital payments (QRIS, ShopeePay), reflecting perceived usefulness and ease of use as described in TAM.

Proposition 2 (P2).

Financial literacy enhances perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of digital marketing tools, strengthening women entrepreneurs’ behavioral intention to adopt and sustain digital business practices.

Further, as one respondent articulated: “At first I was afraid to use online banking, but when I saw others succeed, I started trusting it more.” (W19, service sector). This illustrates that digital trust mediates between financial literacy and actual adoption.

Proposition 3 (P3).

Digital trust mediates the relationship between financial literacy and digital marketing adoption, transforming financial confidence into active technology engagement.

4.4.3. Output Stage—Financially Informed Digital Sustainability (RQ3)

The final stage captures the outcomes of integrating financial and digital competencies, focusing on marketing effectiveness and competitiveness. Across subsectors, participants who practiced financial discipline and digital adaptability showed better sustainability outcomes. For instance:

“By saving from online sales and reinvesting, I can maintain operations even during low seasons.” (W09, culinary sector).

“We evaluate our digital campaigns monthly and adjust pricing and packaging—this keeps our brand relevant.” (W42, beauty sector).

Stakeholder interviews supported this pattern, noting that digitalized women-led SMEs “are more resilient to shocks because they plan financially and react quickly to market changes.” (S21, SME consultant).

From these patterns, it is evident that financially literate entrepreneurs can sustain marketing activities, improve brand trust, and maintain competitiveness through continuous reinvestment and reflective adaptation.

Proposition 4 (P4).

Integration of financial literacy and digital marketing capabilities enhances marketing effectiveness, competitiveness, and long-term business sustainability among women-led SMEs.

4.4.4. Recursive Learning and Empowerment Loop

The findings also highlight that capability development among women entrepreneurs is iterative, not linear. After each business cycle, women reflect on financial outcomes, digital performance, and customer feedback—then adjust strategies accordingly. This learning loop represents a feedback mechanism consistent with experiential learning theory and KBV, where knowledge is continuously created and internalized. As one entrepreneur summarized: “I always review what worked and what failed; that’s how I learn and improve.” (W27, fashion sector).

Proposition 5 (P5).

Women’s financial and digital capabilities evolve through recursive reflection, experiential learning, and social negotiation, leading to continuous empowerment and innovation.

4.4.5. Synthesis: G-FLCM

Integrating findings across RQ1–RQ3, the G-FLCM conceptualizes women’s financial literacy as a dynamic capability system comprising three sequential and interactive stages:

• Input (TRA perspective): Financial cognition, including knowledge, savings, loans, and investment as attitudinal foundations.
• Process (TAM perspective): Financially grounded digital behavior, where budgeting and decision-making shape technology adoption.
• Output (Sustainability perspective): Financial-digital synergy yielding marketing effectiveness, competitiveness, and business resilience.

The model also embeds a feedback loop representing reflective learning and empowerment, reinforcing adaptive and sustainable entrepreneurship practices. Hence, financial literacy is reconceptualized not merely as a static cognitive asset but as a gendered, adaptive capability that enables women entrepreneurs to navigate digital transformation responsibly and effectively in emerging economies.

To consolidate the empirical findings and theoretical interpretations, the following

Table 3. Thematic alignment and propositions.

Research Question	Thematic Focus	Theoretical Lens	Resulting Proposition
RQ1: What is the level of financial literacy among women entrepreneurs?	Financial cognition, saving behavior, loan management, and investment practices.	TRA—Cognitive and attitudinal foundation for entrepreneurial decision-making.	P1: Financial literacy serves as a cognitive–attitudinal capability shaping prudent financial and digital behavior.
RQ2: How is financial literacy implemented in women-managed SMEs?	Operationalization of financial knowledge into marketing budget, digital decision-making, and trust formation.	TAM—Mechanisms of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and digital trust.	P2: Financial literacy enhances the perceived usefulness of digital marketing tools and strengthens decision confidence.
RQ3: How can a gender-sensitive financial literacy model explain the adoption of digital marketing among women-led SMEs?	Interaction of financial literacy, digital trust, behavioral intention, and social constraints in shaping adoption and outcomes.	KBV & Feminist Entrepreneurship Theory—Knowledge as strategic capital; agency within gendered constraints.	P3: Gender-sensitive financial literacy mediates the relationship between knowledge, trust, and digital adoption, enhancing business sustainability.
	Entrepreneurial sustainability and competitiveness outcomes.	Integrated TRA–TAM synthesis with contextual learning and empowerment feedback.	P4: Integration of financial and digital literacy fosters marketing effectiveness, competitiveness, and community empowerment.
	Reflective learning and empowerment as recursive mechanisms for model evolution.	Feminist and transformative learning perspectives.	P5: Women’s financial–digital capability evolves through recursive learning, reflection, and empowerment across contexts.

summarizes the thematic alignment between the research stages, theoretical lenses, and emergent propositions. This synthesis bridges the results from the three research questions (RQ1–RQ3), showing how each thematic domain—ranging from financial cognition to digital adaptation and sustainability outcomes—collectively informs the development of the G-FLCM. By aligning the qualitative evidence, theoretical framing, and derived propositions, Table 3 demonstrates the progressive logic through which women entrepreneurs’ financial literacy evolves into a gender-sensitive capability that drives digital marketing adoption and sustainable business practices.

4.5. Gendered Financial Literacy Capability Model

To avoid ambiguity regarding its purpose and analytical scope, the G-FLCM is presented in this study as a qualitative, interpretive capability model rather than a predictive or test-ready adoption framework. Its function is to synthesize the thematic patterns emerging from RQ1–RQ3 into a coherent capability-development pathway that explains how women transform financial cognition into digital engagement within gendered sociocultural contexts. Accordingly, the G-FLCM should be understood as an analytical abstraction grounded in recurrent empirical patterns rather than as an exhaustive or predictive representation of women’s financial–digital behavior. While the sequential structure of the model may provide a conceptual basis for future quantitative operationalisation, such testing lies outside the scope of this study. For clarity, the G-FLCM should therefore be understood primarily as an interpretive, conceptually driven capability model that offers a qualitative foundation for future empirical refinement rather than a predictive framework.

Although Figure 4 visualizes the core capability-development flow, several analytical components operate implicitly across the model. The theoretical lenses of KBV and feminist entrepreneurship theory are not presented as separate visual layers, yet they underpin the interpretive logic connecting knowledge creation, empowerment, and sociocultural negotiation throughout the input–process–outcome continuum. Likewise, the “limited financial literacy” element appearing in the figure represents the contextual baseline from which women’s capabilities emerge, rather than a formal component of the model’s input layer. Furthermore, each research question (RQ1–RQ3) corresponds to a distinct stage within the model: RQ1 informs the construction of the input layer, RQ2 shapes the mechanisms in the process layer, and RQ3 supports the interpretation of outcomes and the recursive feedback loop. This clarification reinforces that the figure should be interpreted as a synthesized representation of thematic patterns rather than an exhaustive mapping of all theoretical constructs embedded in the analysis.

To further strengthen the interpretive coherence of the G-FLCM, it is essential to articulate the underlying mechanism that connects the model’s input, process, outcome, and feedback components. The capability flow illustrated in Figure 4 follows a sequential yet adaptive logic: financial literacy domains provide the cognitive–attitudinal foundations (input), which are then mobilized through digital marketing practices (process) that translate capability into action. These actions generate measurable improvements in entrepreneurial performance (outcome), which subsequently trigger reflective learning cycles (feedback loop). This cyclical movement ensures that capability development is not linear but continuously reshaped by context, experience, and sociocultural negotiation—an aspect central to feminist and interpretive paradigms. By making this mechanism explicit, the G-FLCM demonstrates how individual cognitions evolve into digital behaviors, and how these behaviors produce both economic and empowerment outcomes that recursively refine women’s financial–digital capability over time.

In addition, the graphical structure of the G-FLCM is designed to provide a layered and integrated representation of these mechanisms. Each horizontal band in the figure corresponds directly to a conceptual layer of the model: capability inputs, digital operationalization processes, entrepreneurial outcomes, and feedback dynamics. The vertical alignment across layers highlights how specific elements (e.g., budget management, data-based decisions, digital trust) serve as mediating bridges that convert foundational literacies into sustainable performance. The circular component at the bottom of the figure visually reinforces the interconnectedness of the four financial literacy domains, demonstrating that capability development is multidimensional rather than isolated. Although simplified for visual clarity, the figure represents the cumulative logic of RQ1–RQ3, where input-level insights flow into process mechanisms and culminate in outcome-level interpretations. This visual–conceptual integration addresses the reviewer’s concern by presenting a coherent, traceable model that links empirical themes to theoretical foundations and practical capability transitions.

The empirical grounding of the G-FLCM is derived directly from the thematic progression identified across RQ1–RQ3. The four financial literacy domains in the input layer emerged consistently across interviews as women described their struggles with financial knowledge, saving discipline, loan navigation, and investment hesitation. The process layer was shaped by narratives illustrating how women operationalized these literacies through digital practices—budgeting, data-based decision-making, and building digital trust—as reported in RQ2. Finally, the outcome and feedback components reflect recurring patterns in RQ3, where participants explained how digital engagement improved business resilience, confidence, and adaptive learning. This sequential alignment ensures that each layer of the G-FLCM is grounded in lived experiences rather than theoretical assumptions, reinforcing the model’s interpretive validity.

The G-FLCM also advances the existing literature by addressing limitations in prior frameworks. Traditional financial capability models conceptualize literacy as an individual cognitive asset and do not explain how financial understanding is transformed into digital behavior. Conversely, feminist digital entrepreneurship models highlight gendered constraints but lack a processual mechanism linking financial cognition, digital trust, and technology adoption. The G-FLCM integrates these perspectives into a unified, capability-based sequence—financial literacy → digital trust → technology adoption → entrepreneurial sustainability—thereby offering a novel explanatory pathway that has not been articulated in previous studies. This differentiation positions the G-FLCM as a theoretically distinct and empirically grounded contribution to gendered financial literacy research.

To clarify how the proposed model advances existing scholarship,

Table 4. Key differences between existing models and the G-FLCM.

Model/Framework	Core Focus	Limitations	Distinct Contribution of G-FLCM
Financial capability frameworks	Individual-level financial knowledge and financial behaviors	Do not explain how financial literacy transforms into digital adoption; minimal attention to gendered sociocultural constraints	Adds a capability-development pathway linking financial cognition → digital trust → reflective behavioral intention → entrepreneurial sustainability
Feminist digital entrepreneurship models	Gendered constraints, structural barriers to technology adoption, sociocultural inequalities	Do not articulate mechanisms through which women convert financial understanding into digital capability	Introduces a processual, gender-sensitive mechanism showing how capability develops through negotiation, reflection, and social learning
TRA and TAM	Cognitive antecedents of behavior (attitudes, subjective norms, perceived usefulness/ease of use)	Linear, individual-centered; lack gendered negotiation and feedback learning; do not conceptualize literacy as capability	Embeds TRA/TAM inside a non-linear capability framework with social learning, trust formation, and reflective adaptation
Knowledge-based view (KBV)	Knowledge as strategic resource; experiential learning	Not gender-sensitive; no linkage between financial knowledge and digital entrepreneurial capability	Reframes financial literacy as a gendered micro-foundation of innovation shaped by sociocultural learning cycles
G-FLCM	Financial literacy as a gendered, evolving capability enabling digital adoption and sustainability		Provides the only integrated model uniting cognitive, behavioral, relational, and contextual mechanisms into a single capability sequence

compares the G-FLCM with major frameworks in financial capability, feminist digital entrepreneurship, TRA/TAM, and KBV.

As shown in Table 4, the G-FLCM extends prior models by integrating cognitive foundations, trust-building mechanisms, social learning, and gendered negotiation into a unified capability-development process. This positions the model as a comprehensive theoretical advancement that bridges individual literacy, digital adoption, and sociocultural empowerment.

At the input level, the G-FLCM conceptualizes women’s financial literacy as a multidimensional capability that integrates four domains—financial knowledge, savings behavior, loan management, and investment capability—under the TRA perspective, emphasizing the cognitive and attitudinal foundations of financial decision-making (Proposition 1). These domains shape rational, reflective, and responsible behaviors that enable women to make informed economic choices and maintain business continuity.

At the process level, these financial capabilities are operationalized through digital marketing practices within the TAM framework, encompassing budget management, data-based decision-making, and the development of digital trust that mediates financial awareness into effective technology adoption (Propositions 2 and 3). Gender-sensitive financial literacy thus enhances perceived usefulness and confidence in digital marketing technologies, helping women entrepreneurs navigate social constraints and participate actively in online markets.

At the outcome level, the model demonstrates that these integrated financial–digital capabilities lead to entrepreneurial sustainability, manifested in improved marketing effectiveness, competitiveness, and business resilience (Proposition 4). Beyond economic outcomes, these capabilities also foster inclusive empowerment and self-efficacy among women entrepreneurs, reinforcing social capital and digital inclusion.

Importantly, the model incorporates a recursive feedback loop of reflective learning and empowerment (Proposition 5), illustrating that women’s financial–digital capability is not static but evolves through iterative reflection, social learning, and contextual adaptation. This dynamic process highlights the continuous interaction between cognitive understanding, digital engagement, and socio-cultural negotiation.

Overall, the G-FLCM demonstrates how financial literacy functions both as a cognitive resource and as a social-behavioral mechanism, enabling women entrepreneurs to engage meaningfully with digital ecosystems, sustain competitive performance, and achieve inclusive business growth in emerging economies. The model thereby bridges individual capability with collective transformation, positioning gender-sensitive financial literacy as a cornerstone for equitable digital entrepreneurship.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

5.1. Integrated Discussion of Findings

This study explored how financial literacy shapes women entrepreneurs’ behavior and digital transformation in Indonesia, generating a multidimensional understanding that links financial knowledge, behavioral practices, and contextual constraints. The findings reveal that most participants possessed only moderate comprehension of basic financial concepts, with stronger familiarity in savings and budgeting compared to investment or digital finance. This aligns with global patterns observed in other developing countries, where women’s financial capability remains unevenly distributed due to socio-cultural and educational disparities (Agyapong & Attram, 2019; Zahid et al., 2024). In Indonesia, this imbalance reflects limited access to structured financial education and a cultural emphasis on household financial roles rather than entrepreneurial financial management (Trianto et al., 2025).

Financial literacy in practice emerged as a deeply contextual process. Many participants balanced household and business needs simultaneously, shaping distinct saving and spending behaviors influenced by family expectations and risk aversion. These findings echo the life-course and social role perspectives, suggesting that women’s financial decisions are embedded in relational dynamics rather than purely rational calculations (N. Gupta & Mirchandani, 2018; Jayawarna et al., 2021). In emerging economies, such adaptive balancing acts often represent resilience strategies that sustain both domestic welfare and business continuity (Hendriani et al., 2019; Theresia et al., 2025).

The adoption of digital marketing presented a critical extension of financial literacy in the digital economy. Women entrepreneurs demonstrated growing trust and experimentation with online tools such as WhatsApp Business, Instagram, and e-wallet systems. However, digital participation was often hindered by limited technological confidence and perceived risk—challenges consistent with the constructs of perceived usefulness and digital trust in TAM and TRA frameworks (Davis, 1989; Ajzen, 2006; Gefen et al., 2003; Nazir & Khan, 2024). Yet, several participants who exhibited higher financial awareness also showed stronger digital adaptability, implying a synergistic relationship between cognitive literacy and digital capability. Similar findings have been reported across developing economies, where financial knowledge facilitates informed digital adoption and fosters entrepreneurial agility (Hasan et al., 2024; Salamzadeh et al., 2024; Alom et al., 2025).

Integrating these observations, this study confirms that financial literacy acts as both a cognitive and behavioral enabler for women’s digital engagement. It functions as a strategic resource that enhances decision-making confidence, mitigates perceived technological risk, and supports the transition from subsistence entrepreneurship toward digital-based sustainability (Oggero et al., 2020; Mushi, 2024). In the Indonesian context, this dual role underscores the need to view women’s financial capability not as an isolated competence but as an evolving socio-economic mechanism that drives reflective learning, agency enhancement, and long-term business resilience.

To more explicitly substantiate the gendered nature of these findings, it is necessary to distinguish which mechanisms observed in the data are characteristically shaped by women’s social positions and which are more universal among micro-entrepreneurs. Themes such as balancing domestic and business responsibilities, prioritizing children’s educational needs, heightened risk aversion toward credit, and reliance on familial approval are strongly aligned with feminist entrepreneurship literature, which demonstrates how women’s financial decisions are mediated by social expectations, relational obligations, and structural inequalities (Lusardi & Mitchell, 2014; Bucher-Koenen et al., 2017; Martinez Dy et al., 2018). In contrast, practices such as basic budgeting discipline, managing cash flow, and experimenting with low-cost digital tools appear to be more universal entrepreneurial behaviors found across genders. Clarifying these distinctions reinforces that the “gendered” aspect of the G-FLCM arises not from women possessing inherently different skills, but from the sociocultural mechanisms that shape how financial knowledge is accessed, interpreted, and enacted within their entrepreneurial lives.

Building on these findings, the G-FLCM offers a theoretically distinct contribution by demonstrating how financial literacy is transformed into digital capability through a sequential, empirically grounded mechanism. Unlike existing financial capability frameworks that conceptualize literacy as an individual cognitive skill, the G-FLCM shows that women develop digital readiness through interconnected processes of financial cognition, digital trust formation, and adaptive behavioral intention. Likewise, feminist digital entrepreneurship models describe structural constraints but do not articulate the capability pathway through which women convert financial understanding into sustained digital engagement. By integrating these domains into a unified capability-development sequence, the G-FLCM advances current theory and explains women’s digital entrepreneurship not merely as an outcome of knowledge acquisition, but as an evolving sociocultural negotiation shaped by gendered experiences and iterative learning.

5.2. Theoretical Contributions

Theoretically, this study contributes to the literature by integrating the KBV, TRA, TAM, and feminist entrepreneurship theory into a cohesive framework explaining how financial literacy evolves into a gendered capability. The G-FLCM reconceptualizes financial literacy as an intangible capital (Grant, 1996; Nonaka et al., 1996) that not only accumulates knowledge but also transforms behavioral intentions and trust mechanisms essential for digital participation. This reconceptualization extends the KBV by positioning financial literacy as a micro-foundation of innovation within gendered entrepreneurial contexts.

By combining TRA and TAM, the model reveals that financial literacy does not directly predict technology adoption; instead, it operates through the mediating role of perceived usefulness, digital trust, and social support (Davis, 1989; Venkatesh et al., 2003). These insights deepen understanding of how knowledge-based resources are converted into behavioral outcomes through iterative sensemaking. Moreover, through the lens of feminist entrepreneurship theory, the G-FLCM contextualizes these mechanisms within gendered realities—acknowledging that structural biases, family expectations, and normative constraints shape how women interpret financial and digital opportunities (Martinez Dy et al., 2018; Cullen, 2020).

This integration extends entrepreneurship theory by articulating gender-sensitive financial literacy as both a capability and a process. The G-FLCM introduces reflexivity and contextual learning as central to capability formation, challenging linear models of literacy and innovation. In doing so, it bridges the gap between cognitive theories of behavior (Ajzen, 2006) and structural perspectives of empowerment (Agarwal & Lenka, 2018; Henry et al., 2021), advancing a holistic understanding of women’s entrepreneurship in digital economies.

This study further establishes the distinctiveness of the G-FLCM by explicating a capability-development pathway that is absent in existing frameworks. Traditional financial capability models emphasize individual skills but do not explain how financial cognition is transformed into digital readiness or sustained entrepreneurial action. Likewise, feminist digital entrepreneurship models illuminate structural constraints but provide limited insight into the mechanisms through which women convert financial understanding into technology adoption. The G-FLCM advances these perspectives by integrating cognitive, behavioral, and sociocultural layers into a sequential mechanism—financial cognition → digital trust → reflective intention → sustainable digital engagement. This mechanism demonstrates that capability formation is recursive, socially mediated, and gendered, offering a theoretically novel explanation of how financial literacy becomes a strategic resource within digital entrepreneurial ecosystems.

5.3. Practical Contributions

The findings provide actionable implications for policymakers, educators, financial institutions, and development organizations by demonstrating that effective capacity building must move beyond financial knowledge dissemination toward cultivating adaptive financial–digital behaviors grounded in reflection, experimentation, and social learning. The G-FLCM underscores the importance of embedding gender sensitivity and contextual awareness into financial and digital empowerment programs. In the Indonesian context, national financial literacy initiatives and women SME empowerment programs can operationalize the model by prioritizing experiential learning, peer mentoring, participatory simulations, and digital workshops rather than relying solely on top-down, information-based instruction. Within entrepreneurship education, the model supports curriculum redesign that integrates financial cognition with digital application through fintech literacy, online branding, and digital marketing analytics, strengthened by collaborative partnerships among universities, cooperatives, and fintech providers.

At the institutional and community levels, the findings highlight the need for gender-responsive digital financial products, simplified user interfaces, transparent credit mechanisms, and localized training that align with women’s trust formation processes and risk perceptions. The G-FLCM advances practice by clarifying a sequenced capability pathway—strengthening financial cognition, fostering digital trust through peer-led demonstration, and enabling reflective digital experimentation—while recognizing the critical role of psychosocial dimensions such as emotional security and peer reassurance. These elements are essential for reducing technology-related anxiety and loan-related fear, thereby accelerating digital adoption and financial inclusion among women entrepreneurs.

Beyond these implications, the G-FLCM provides a practical diagnostic tool for assessing readiness among women-led SMEs. Policymakers, educators, and development practitioners can use the model to identify whether constraints arise at the cognitive, behavioral, trust-building, or contextual level, ensuring that interventions are not only gender-sensitive but also stage-appropriate. This capability-based assessment approach offers a more nuanced and operational framework for strengthening inclusive, digitally adaptive, and gender-equitable entrepreneurial ecosystems in emerging economies compared to prevailing one-size-fits-all financial literacy models.

5.4. Limitations and Future Research

While the study provides significant theoretical and practical insights, it acknowledges several limitations that invite future inquiry. First, the research is contextually bounded to Indonesia—a rapidly developing economy whose socio-cultural norms and institutional structures shape women’s entrepreneurial behavior. Future studies could undertake cross-country comparative analyses across Southeast Asia or Africa to assess the transferability of the G-FLCM, particularly in contexts with differing gender norms or digital ecosystems.

Second, the study relies primarily on self-reported narratives of financial and digital practices, which may not fully capture participants’ actual behavioral data. The research did not have access to financial records, digital marketing analytics, or platform-generated performance metrics; therefore, certain claims—such as data-driven decision-making or strategic digital capability—reflect participants’ subjective interpretations rather than objective behavioral traces. To mitigate this limitation, the study incorporated methodological triangulation through stakeholder interviews and the use of visual artifacts (e.g., screenshots of transactions, digital storefronts, sales interactions, and marketing layouts) to validate and contextualize participants’ accounts. Nevertheless, the absence of real-time behavioral data remains an important methodological boundary and represents a key direction for future empirical research.

Third, despite methodological triangulation, this study’s qualitative design limits statistical generalization. Subsequent research may employ mixed-method approaches, such as PLS-SEM or fsQCA, to empirically test the causal pathways suggested by the model—especially the mediating effects of digital trust and behavioral intention.

Fourth, while focusing on women-led SMEs provides gendered specificity, future work should consider intersectional variables such as age, education, and urban–rural divides. These factors may reveal nuanced trajectories in literacy development and digital engagement. For instance, younger women may display higher digital adaptability yet lower financial discipline, while rural entrepreneurs rely more on social capital than formal financial systems—a dynamic warranting deeper quantitative exploration.

Finally, longitudinal and interdisciplinary research could enhance understanding of how financial–digital capabilities evolve through time and technological change. Integrating behavioral economics and AI-driven fintech analytics may reveal how algorithmic nudges and digital trust systems influence women’s financial decision-making and empowerment.

In summary, while this study establishes a robust foundation for theorizing gendered financial literacy, its evolution should continue through comparative, longitudinal, and data-intensive methodologies. Such efforts will refine the G-FLCM and advance global understanding of how financial and digital empowerment intersect to foster inclusive, sustainable entrepreneurship in emerging economies.

Integrating the interpretive insights discussed above, this study advances the understanding of women’s financial and digital empowerment in developing contexts by introducing and empirically grounding the G-FLCM. Drawing from qualitative evidence involving 75 participants across diverse SME subsectors in Indonesia, the study demonstrates that financial literacy functions not only as cognitive knowledge but as an evolving socio-behavioral capability that enables women to navigate financial, technological, and social complexities. The model positions financial literacy within four interconnected domains—financial knowledge, savings, loans, and investment—and reveals how these domains interact with TRA mechanisms of intention formation and TAMs of perceived usefulness, digital trust, and behavioral readiness to produce adaptive digital marketing practices. Theoretically, the G-FLCM bridges the KBV and feminist entrepreneurship theory by reframing financial literacy as an intangible, gendered capability that transforms structural constraints into reflective learning and innovation. Practically, the framework offers a policy and educational blueprint for cultivating women’s adaptive financial–digital capacity through experiential learning, participatory mentoring, and inclusive fintech design. Although grounded in an Indonesian context, the insights extend to other emerging economies with similar socio-cultural and technological landscapes. Future studies may strengthen and validate the model through mixed-method or longitudinal designs to examine how gendered capabilities evolve across regions, sectors, and technological environments. Ultimately, this study reaffirms that empowering women entrepreneurs requires more than access to finance or digital tools—it requires nurturing the reflective and integrative capabilities that sustain innovation, trust, and competitiveness in an increasingly digital economy.