Are Male and Female Entrepreneurs Really That Different?
We’ve frequently looked at traits and characteristics of small business owners on this blog (for example: here, here), and asked questions such as “Do women make better entrepreneurs?”
I was happy to stumble across a research study conducted by the SBA which lends some more data to our conversations.
Specifically the report looks a sample size of 685 small business owners, of which 349 are women owned firms, in hopes of answering the question:
Are Male and Female Entrepreneurs Really That Different?
While gender was shown not to affect new venture performance when preferences, motivation, and expectations were controlled for, the differences observed among men’s and women’s new business ventures include the following:
• Men had more business experience prior to opening the business and higher expectations.
• Women entrepreneurs had a larger average household size.
• The educational backgrounds of male and female entrepreneurs were similar.
• Women were less likely than men to purchase their business.
• Women were more likely to have positive revenues
• Men were more likely to own an employer firm.
• Female owners were more likely to prefer low risk/return businesses.
• Men spent slightly more time on their new ventures than women.
• Male owners were more likely to start a business to make money, had higher expectations for their business, and did more research to identify business opportunities.
• Male entrepreneurs were more likely to found technologically intensive businesses, businesses that lose their competitive advantage more quickly, and businesses that have a less geographically localized customer base.
• Male owners spent more effort searching for business opportunities and this held up when other factors were controlled for.
What do you think? Are these findings consistent with what you’ve experienced?
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If you are interested in reading the entire 65 page report, you can find it here: Male and female entrepreneurs.pdf
Photo Credit: Smoke Da Life
Minority Owned Small Business By the Numbers
The Overall Picture
- Minorities own 15.1% of all businesses in the United States
- More minority business enterprises are being created at every level, from small/micro
operations to rapidly growing technology companies. According to this report, State of Minority
Business Enterprises: An Overview of the 2002 Survey of Business Owners, minority-owned
firms generated over $668 billion in annual sales, and employed about 4.7 million people in
2002.
- Businesses grossing over $500,000 annually in sales represented 75 percent of all minority
annual gross receipts and 73 percent of all employees in the minority business community.
- Using a proxy for measuring minority business growth, Black-owned firms had the highest growth rate for several measures between 1997-2002
Source: State of Minority Business Report 2002
Where are Minority Owned Businesses Located?
- 57% of all minority businesses in the nation resided in California, Texas, New York, and Florida in 2002
- Fastest growth in number of minority owned firms occurred in Nevada, Georgia, New York, Florida, and Minnesota between 1997-2002
Minority Owned Business % of Firms Owned By:
Hispanic: 40.2%
Asian: 28.1%
Black: 28%
American Indian: 6.7%
Source: SBA, "Dynamics of Minority-Owned Employer Establishments, 1999-2001," February 2005
Four Year Survival Rates:
Sources of Capital (click for larger)
