Brush, John Watson and Elisabet Ljunggren, as well as international researchers based in the UK, mainland Europe, the US and Australia, Female Entrepreneurship provides a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and opportunities facing female entrepreneurs worldwide. 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Published simultaneously in the US and Canada by Routledge.
Contributors
Rick Newby, Associate Professor of Accounting and Finance, School of Economics and Commerce, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia. John Watson, Associate Professor of Accounting and Finance, School of Economics and Commerce, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.
Reviewers
It was a privilege to write the foreword for such an important book, which aims to highlight the key issues facing women entrepreneurs and illustrate how educators, trainers and support agencies can best understand female entrepreneurship and promote. I sincerely hope that readers can use the learning in this book to develop and advance the issues of women entrepreneurs.
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
This book aims to improve understanding and bring about real change in the field of women's entrepreneurship in a number of strategic ways. In Chapter 5, Elisabet Ljunggren and Gry Agnete Alsos explore the topic of the general perception of female entrepreneurship in more detail.
Understanding female entrepreneurship
2 Female entrepreneurship
The first of the six main themes concentrates on the characteristics and motivations of female business owners. A Study of the Impact of Gender on Business Performance and Management Patterns in Small Business Enterprises'.
3 Gender differences in the goals of owner-operated SMEs
This suggests that any assessment of the (financial) performance of owner-managed SMEs should control for the effects of these additional (non-financial) objectives. The development of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1977) was based on this belief that gender is a multidimensional rather than a unidimensional construct, with Bem (1974) finding empirical support for her claim that psychological masculinity and femininity do not necessarily correlate with biological sex (men and women self-assessed themselves as high or low on both scales). 5 How the goals and expectations of male and female SME owner-managers differ.
6 Do measures of sex roles provide greater insight into the goals and expectations of SME owner-operators than biological sex. Panel A of Table 3.3 presents the results of our tests of the relationship between the seven traditional psychological scales and biological sex. Note also that at least one of Norman's Big Five Dimensions was important in explaining the importance placed on each of the seven owner-operator goals.
In our sample of SME owner-operators (and consistent with previous findings for the wider community) we found that Norman's Big Five did not appear to have a masculinity (or femininity) bias. Meta-Analysis of the Relationship Between the Five Factor Model of Personality and Holland's Occupational Types”.
4 Attitudes towards
Northern Ireland's GDP per capita is one of the lowest in Britain, at just 77 percent of the British average (Ulster Society of Chartered Accountants, 2001:2). However, in Northern Ireland the number of business start-ups is lower than in the rest of Britain (6.9 percent of business registrations compared to existing companies, compared to 11.5 percent in the UK as a whole). Again, a higher percentage of men than women was found at levels one and two, while at level three the opposite was true (56.4 percent of women and 48.6 percent of men).
However, at level three there is little difference in the proportions between students of both genders (43.2 percent men, 45.4 percent women). The differences in responses are notable at level three (men, 48.6 percent; women, 63.4 percent). However, there are larger differences in responses at level two (61.1 percent, 42.7 percent – the percentage of men mentioned first).
The lowest percentage of individuals across all three levels who have considered self-employment as an alternative to work is 54.2 percent of women at level three. The lowest percentage of individuals at all levels who have considered setting up a business is 49.5 percent of women at level three.
5 Media expressions of entrepreneurs
The study presented in this chapter consists of two parts: the first part begins with a quantitative description of the exposure of entrepreneurs in media articles and entrepreneurs in Norway 89. The topics mentioned in articles on entrepreneurs depend on the role presented. . Although the presentations differ according to the central issue in the article, the nature of the business ideas, as well as the size of the business, there also appear to be gender differences.
This is evident from most of the articles in the empirical material, although there are also large differences in the description of female and male entrepreneurs. This article is double-sided in the Saturday issue, and the illustration is a caricature, typical of Saturday portraits. The title of the article is "Cycling all the way to the top", and the photo shows a smiling Sveaas cycling in the rain.
Therefore, the discourses about entrepreneurs found in the newspaper articles are also discourses from this society. Female entrepreneurs are mentioned so rarely that they are more or less invisible in the newspaper.
6 An exploration of networking practices of female entrepreneurs
Sectoral issues, although relatively unimportant at this stage of the study, will be addressed in the wider study. They can be deeply personal and reflect relationships that are deeply rooted in the individual's life. All the businesses involved were based in Northern Ireland and none of the women entrepreneurs involved in the study had completed any formal business training prior to starting.
This appeared to be the case in the informal networks of both new firms and established firms. This research highlighted the importance of networking activities in building trust in the female entrepreneur, and the changing nature of the female network of contacts as the business develops. In the following section, the authors propose a theoretical model of female entrepreneurial network behavior as derived from this pilot study.
At present, confidence is relatively low, especially in the early stages of the new venture. Strauss (2000) notes that this is the beginning of the initial stages of the female bonding approach.
Promoting female entrepreneurship
7 Women and new business creation
Despite the increasing number of female business owners, the prevalence of self-employed women is systematically lower compared to men (Schmidt and Parker, 2003). Therefore, encouraging women's business ownership is considered one of the sources of growth, employment and innovation (Orhan, 2001). Some of the literature suggests that changes in the gendered context affect women's needs and behaviour.
But in relation to a coherent work, literature plays catch-up, i.e. while acknowledging changes in women's decision-making context, the literature is not yet focused on women's self-employment context. Given the paucity of research on women and self-employment, it is not unexpected to find that few studies have specifically focused on the risk characteristics of self-employed women. It therefore follows that a lack of confidence may be the biggest obstacle to women's progression to small business ownership (Fielden et al., Women and new business creation 141.
At the start-up stage the question "Is SME ownership an opportunity for women?" must be answered. However, any risk management training must be aware of the influence of social structures on women's understanding and attitudes towards risk and self-employment.
8 Enhancing women’s financial strategies for growth
We begin with a discussion of the economic impact of women-led ventures, followed by a consideration of the challenges faced by those trying to start high-growth businesses. Those who have equity in the business usually expect to receive a share of the profits. Despite some progress, our understanding of the financing strategies of women-led ventures is based on only a few studies on the relationship between gender and access to debt financing, and many of the results are inconclusive (Greene et al., 2001).
In addition, 50 percent of the entrepreneurs in our study reported funding from venture capital firms. One such program dedicated to advancing the venture capital practice in the US is the Kauffman Institute for Venture Education. The mission is to be the leading educational institution for the global advancement of the venture capital process.
However, of the sixty-one venture capital fellows the Kauffman program has trained to date, 25 percent of the fellows are women. A Study on the Influence of Gender on Business Performance and Management Patterns in Small Businesses”.
9 Women in engineering and technological entrepreneurship
Due to the variety of courses and titles in the engineering and technology disciplines, it can be difficult to present grades from the tertiary undergraduate sector. For example, the BSc Computer Systems is a technology course with one of the highest levels of female participation in such courses within the university. Furthermore, the Irish economy and the global economy are losing out due to the lack of involvement of women in the development of that economy.
In recent years, the University of Limerick has been involved in Women in engineering and technology 173. Thus, the lack of suitable role models has been identified as one of the main reasons why female students do not pursue careers in science and technology (Murphy, 1996) . It gives students an insight into the role of the entrepreneur and the entrepreneurial process and induces enterprising behaviour.
Workshops are key to the delivery process to identify and accommodate the more specific needs of different students. The content focus provides students with an understanding of the stages of the entrepreneurial process.