Female Entrepreneurs: How Far Have They Come?
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Eleanor "Holly" Buttner, Professor (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Abstract: Women have been starting their own businesses in unprecedented numbers in recent years. They are leaving large corporations to "go it alone" for a number of career reasons: frustration at hitting the "glass ceiling," dissatisfaction with slow career advancement and unmet career expectations, and corporate downsizing. They are also fulfilling personal dreams of entrepreneurship, being their own boss, and achieving success in business.
The rapid increase in women-owned enterprises is important because small business provided the major source of new job growth in the 1980s. Women have been initiating businesses at twice the rate of men. Between 1972 and 1987, businesses owned by women grew from less than 5 percent to 28 percent of all U.S. businesses. According to the 1988 State of Small Business Report, the number of non-farm sole proprietorships owned by women increased 62 percent between 1980 and 1986. If current startup rates continue, women will own half of U.S. busi-nesses by the year 2000.
Until recently, most of what we have known about entrepreneurs has been based on the study of men who initiated ventures. Because the number of women starting their own businesses has
grown so large, it is important now to understand whether their experiences are different from those of their male counterparts. Consequently, we are learning much more about the women who are piloting their ventures in the turbulent seas of the current economic climate. The purpose of this article is to summarize what we know about the experiences of today's entrepreneurial women in North America.
Female Entrepreneurs: How Far Have They Come?
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Created on 1/1/1993
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Business Horizons. 36(2), 59-65
- Language: English
- Date: 1993
- Keywords
- Women entrepreneurs, Career advancement, Experiences