Female Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century:

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Female Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century The
Way Forward Conference Tuesday 26th September
2006 Dublin, Ireland Dinah Bennett Durham
Business School UK
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Why focus on women?

• Economic imperative
• - Expanding the involvement of women in
• entrepreneurship is critical for long-term
  economic
• growth
• Under-representation
• Different Experience
• - different motivations/ less resources/ longer
• incubation

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• Introduction
• Womens enterprise development UK context
• Barriers
• Women Into the Network (WIN)
• Lessons

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Some Facts

• Participation of Women in Enterprise is
• significant and rising.
• Womens Businesses contribute to
• economic development and job creation
• No country in the world where women are
• more entrepreneurially active than men.
• Globally the participation of men starting
• businesses usually 50 higher than women

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• More women than before are in the labour force
  throughout their reproductive years, though
  obstacles with employment persist.
• Women experience more unemployment than men and
  for a longer period of time than men.
• Women remain at the lower end of a segregated
  labour market and continue to be concentrated in
  a few occupations, to hold positions of little or
  no authority and to receive less pay than men.
• Available statistics are still far from providing
  a strong basis for assessing both quantitative
  and qualitative changes in women's employment.

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UK Context

• Womens enterprise increasingly seen as important
• Growth of womens business ownership
• The gender dimension to barriers recognised
• A wide range of initiatives aimed at addressing
  these
• 2003 Strategic Framework launched

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Barriers

• Access to finance
• Care/domestic responsibilities
• Lack of knowledge/training in business
• skills
• Perceptual barriers of credibility

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Women and their assets for business
Abilities, skills and experience
Motivation Determination
H
Confidence
S
N
Women
P
F
Idea with a Market
Resources
Plan and Manage
Index H Human Assets N Natural Assets S
Social Assets P Physical Assets F Financial
Assets
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Confidence and Social Capital

• Confidence is
• A complex issue
• Very personal
• Not exclusively gender specific
• A relative concept e.g. business stage
• Relating confidence and social capital

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Social Capital a definition

• OECD networks together with shared norms,
  values and understandings that facilitate
  co-operation within and among groups
• the personal contacts and social
  networks that generate shared understandings,
  trust and reciprocity within and between social
  groups

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Nature of Social Capital

• Bonding - refers to those ties between those
  people in similar situations like family, close
  friends and neighbours
• Bridging - describes weak or new ties to like
  persons
• Linking refers to ties to people in dissimilar
  situations- weak ties

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Social Capital Critical to Business

• Successful entrepreneurship is about managing
  relationships with a range of stakeholders (Gibb)
• Knowing who are the critical stakeholders in your
  network and why
• What are these relationships how are they
  maintained
• Business Networking a critical vehicle for
  building social capital

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Role of Networking

• Know who/how
• Individual/collective
• Membership group

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Women Into the Network

• When - Started in 1999 in the North East of
  England
• Why - Low numbers of women in business and
  research showed 700 networks under utilised
• Who - Potential and existing women in business
  those who support
• What - Relationship building through networking
  for womens enterprise
• 2000 women members regionally - 24000 nationally

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WIN multi layered activities

• Events from training workshops to lunches
• Awards annual event
• Communications and Publications website,
• newsletters, ezines
• Role models development promotion
• Sectoral initiatives
• Research
• Signposting
• Dissemination

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Theme - Make Networking Explicit

• Developing understanding about Networks
  networking
• I hate networking
• Easy entry points
• Rehearsal space
• Women only or mixed ?
• Conduit for support sector
• Brokerage getting to know spaces
• Lobbying for change to existing business networks

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Mixed Perceptions Expectations

• The banking research as a case study
• Expectations
• Women wanted bank to be more proactive and
  interested in their business. An important
  stakeholder.
• Men merely saw the bank as a service provider
• Bankers - access to their networks . but
  mechanisms venues used by banks are often not
  appropriate
• Training for women to better manage their bank
  managers vice versa

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Assumptions Impressions

• Challenges for effective and trust based
• relationship building
• Assumptions can close off areas of support.
• Stereotyping - websites women socially
  excluded
• Home based /portfolio business diminutive
• First impressions critical when transaction costs
  of
• getting to the meeting are high

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Business support for womenissues for advisers

• Knowing the customer base catering for diverse
  needs
• Recognition of needs of part-time businesses
• Assistance from pre-pre start-up through to
  business growth
• Accessible services timing/ transport/ care/
  ethnicity
• Role models

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Women Into the NetworkA Dynamic Model for
Supporting Womens Enterprise

• Active support partnership working, public,
  private voluntary
• First three years over 900 jobs created
• European wide impact through EQUAL funded
  Accelerating Womens Enterprise (AWE) Programme
• Founding board member of PROWESS
• Selected as UK Best Practice Model for Supporting
  Womens Entrepreneurship
• Awarded Flagship Status by PROWESS National
  Business Support Organisation for three
  consecutive years
• Spinning out 3 UK Regions, Ireland, Croatia,
  Slovenia and South Africa
• 2000 members regionally
• 24,000 members nationally
• Winner of CBI First Woman Corporate Award 2006

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Dinah Bennett

• www.womenintothenetwork.co.uk
• Dinah.bennett_at_durham.ac.uk
• 44 (0)191 334 5497