Impact of Gender on Difficulties Faced by Entrepreneurs

Abstract

<jats:p> During the last decade, women have been recognized as successful entrepreneurs, and the constantly rising number of women-owned businesses all over the world has led to an increasing number of studies on the differences between male and female entrepreneurs and their businesses. Women's entrepreneurship is characterized by structural constraints such as family responsibility and a relative lack of relevant resources such as social capital. Following the resource-based perspective, this study investigates whether women entrepreneurs face different difficulties from their male counterparts and are indeed disadvantaged as to resources such as management experience, business and technical skills, raising capital, etc. The results of the study show that women's ventures are smaller, service-oriented and ‘cheaper’ to finance. Compared with their male counterparts, women entrepreneurs perceive their lack of management experience and business skills as a major constraint. </jats:p>

Discouraged Advisees? The Influence of Gender, Ethnicity, and Education in the Use of Advice and Finance by UK SMEs

“…However, men were more likely to use family and friends (possibly, as the literature suggests, due to men"s higher level of access to social capital such as business networks Carter and Shaw, 2006;Manolova et al, 2006;Heilbrunn, 2004) (Barrett, 1995;Basu, 1998;Bennett and Robson, 1999a;Ram et al, 2002;Whitehead et al, 2006;Fraser, 2007;Bennett, 2008;Robson et al, 2008). The conclusion here is that Business Link has started to make inroads into the African Caribbean community because of: (a) social capital: there are fewer existing entrepreneurs within African Caribbeans" social networks to give advice; and (b) gender: there may simply be more women entrepreneurs within this community.…”

“…A lack of management or business experience is considered by many women as a key finance constraint (Heilbrunn, 2004). Higher levels of human capital (education or experience) amongst women may overcome the "gender disadvantage" in obtaining finance (Smith-Hunter, 2006).…”

“…In the UK, an extensive programme of research into the use of external advice has been undertaken (e.g. Bennett and Robson, 1999a, b;2004;Bennett et al, 2000a, b;Robson and Bennett, 2000). A number of other articles investigated business advice, but few attempted to make comparisons by personal characteristics.…”

Impact of Social Capital Development and Use in the Growth Process of Women-Owned Firms

“…There has been an increased recognition of women as successful entrepreneurs combined with a rising number of female owned businesses globally during the past two decades (Heilbrunn 2004). However, women entrepreneurship is characterised by a number of constraints including family responsibility as well as lack of relevant resources such as social capital.…”

Testing Gender Productivity Difference with Informal Enterprises Data: A Case Study of Burkina Faso

“…In the past, economists focused themselves on identifying factors that have been determining women's participation to labor market [1,2,3]. Nowadays, robust responses have been provided to this question.…”