Adjustment Strategies in the Family Business: Implications of Gender and Management Role

Four gender/role categories are compared to ascertain the influence that gender and management roles and related characteristics have on adjustment strategies selected during hectic times in the family or the family business. The five adjustment strategies involve reallocation of family or business tasks, intertwining tasks, using volunteer help and hiring outside help. Data are from the 1997 National Family Business Study (n = 673). Findings from multiple regression analysis indicate that, with the exception of intertwining tasks, there are not significant differences between men and women on adjustment strategies when controlling for family and business demands and human resources. Single-role managers are more likely to reallocate family resources to the business than are two-role managers, regardless of gender.     

Profiling a New Generation of Female Small Business Owners in New Zealand: Networking,Mentoring and Growth

The contribution of female small business owners to economic development in Western developed countries such as New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, is generally under–researched and traditionally grounded in male norms. Increasingly policy–makers acknowledge that in countries like New Zealand where 85% of business employs five or less people, small business offers the greatest employment potential. Not enough is known, though, about the growth orientation and characteristics of female small business owners. This article reports findings from the largest empirical study of small business undertaken in New Zealand and provides inter–gender comparison between male and female small business owners and for intra–gender contrast between networked female small business owners and women who did not belong to a business network. The results showed that the networked women, who were in the main better educated and more affiliative by nature, were more expansionist than both other female small business owners and men. The networked women were also more likely to have a business mentor. The findings confound earlier research suggesting women are less growth–orientated and wish only to satisfy intrinsic needs from their businesses. The article concludes by discussing the need to acknowledge the heterogeneity of female small business and what this means for policy–makers when assessing their socio–economic potential.     

Social network and family business: Uncovering hybrid family firms

What does it mean for a private enterprise in China to be embedded in a family? Our purpose here is twofold: (1) use social network analysis to describe what it means for a firm to be embedded in a family, (2) reveal from the application a new kind of firm, not family, yet akin to family. Armed with data on a large probability sample of private enterprises — a third of which meet ownership and employment criteria of being family businesses — we uncover a category of “hybrid family firms” that look modern in the style of firms that exclude family, but operate socially in ways similar to family firms. Our conclusion from summary statistics on the sample is that there are no differences in average performance level or network advantage for the three categories of businesses: family firms, hybrid family firms, and family-excluded firms. The fact that CEOs of family firms and hybrid family firms more often turn to family as key business contacts is a fact about network composition that raises no question about network mechanisms. Whether the CEO turns to more or fewer family contacts, government help is more likely with stronger political connections, and business success and survival are more likely with a large, open network. That said, the look-modern, act-traditional hybrid family firms stand alone in prospering with a CEO embedded in a closed business network. Recognition of hybrid family firms adds to the literature’s illustrations of social network analysis used to distinguish types of businesses and business people, and extends the population of organizations within which governance and strategy are likely to be better understood when viewed through a family logic.     

Goal Orientation and Performance of Family Businesses

Family businesses consist of family members pooling their resources together to achieve a particular goal for the family business. The objectives of this study were to profile the characteristics of the family businesses and business owners by owners’ goal orientation and to examine the influence of goal orientation on family business performance. The mean differences in values of business size, business age, and business liabilities were statistically significant by owners’ goal orientation. The major findings of this study suggest that owner goal orientation had a statistically significant effect on business performance. Specifically, setting a business goal such as growth or a positive reputation with customers had a significant and positive impact on family business performance.     

Continuation Commitment: Family’s Commitment to Continue the Family Business

This study investigates what influences families’ commitment to continue a family business, or continuation commitment. We hypothesize that top executives’ cultural capital, family members’ satisfaction with the firms past performance and their aspirations regarding its future performance, as well as the level of family involvement in the family business represent key factors underlying continuation commitment. In addition, we suggest the interaction effects among the identified factors that affect a family’s commitment will be higher in the founder generation compared to successive generations of family owners. Analysis of a dataset of 2,168 family firms from a nationwide survey provided support for most hypotheses.     

Work and Employment in Small Businesses: Perpetuating and Challenging Gender Traditions

More and more women and men are becoming dependent on some form of small business activity for all or part of their livelihoods but there is little research offering insight into gender and working practices in small businesses. In this article we assess some theoretical approaches and discuss these against an empirical investigation of micro-firms run by women, men and mixed sex partnerships. In the ‘entrepreneurship’ literature, with its emphasis on the individual business owner, we find little guidance. We argue that in the ‘modern’ micro-business, family and work are brought into proximity as in the ‘in between’ organizational form described by Weber. The celebrated ‘flexibility’ of small firms often involves the reproduction within modernity of seemingly pre-modern practices in household organization and gender divisions of labour. This is true in the Britain of the 1990s in a growing business sector normally associated neither with tradition nor with the family. Tradition, however, is never automatic or uncontested in a ‘post-traditional society’. A minority of women and men in micro-enterprises actively resist traditional solutions and even traditional imagery of male and female behaviour. For this small group alone new economic conditions seem to bring new freedom.     

Attracting Micro‐Enterprises To Learning

Micro‐enterprises, i.e. firms with less than 10 employees, are traditionally the hardest to engage in learning; they are also least likely to participate in such measures as business advice and guidance provision and initiatives to support information communication technology (ICT) adoption. Through a community‐based initiative initially targeting parents (unemployed or employed) to participate in ICT, 30 micro‐enterprises were attracted to learning for the first time. These companies had carefully avoided similar initiatives taking place locally, which emphasized business success and growth; they had only participated in this ICT skills training because of their children. The paper takes a case study approach to evaluate the reasons for participation, explores barriers and implications for those organizing similar activities, and calls for a more holistic view of owners and managers of small firms as fathers, mothers, etc. rather than just as ‘entrepreneurs’.     

Gender Differences in Perceived Business Success and Profit Growth Among Family Business Managers

Using data from the 1997–2000 National Family Business Surveys (NFBS), this study investigated the effect of gender on business success and profit growth among family businesses. The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) results indicate that all else being equal, female managers perceived their businesses as more successful than male managers, and they reported more profit growth between 1996 and 1999 than male managers. The results of the dummy variable interaction approach also show that a differential response existed in profit growth over time between female and male managers in relation to health status, business liabilities, business size, and whether the business was home-based. This study concludes that there are many distinct differences between male and female managers in business performance.     

The Quest for Invisibility: Female Entrepreneurs and the Masculine Norm of Entrepreneurship

The emphasis in research on female entrepreneurship remains focused on the impact of gender on women’s experience of business ownership, often demonstrated through comparisons of male and female entrepreneurs. By contrast, this article explores the differences and divisions between women business owners who are silent about gender issues and those who are not. The main data drawn on in the article are e‐mails conducted through a web‐based entrepreneurial network set up to promote and support women in business, supplemented with interview material derived from an interview study of 19 women business owners. By considering the way in which some women business owners not only treat entrepreneurship as gender‐neutral, but also seek to conceal its gendered nature, we can see how some female entrepreneurs are trying to avoid being identified as different from the masculine norm of entrepreneurship.     

Liability of Newness: Assessing Couple Social Support When Starting A New Business Venture

Study purpose was to investigate adapted social support instruments of nurturance and affiliation with male and female entrepreneurs and spouses starting a new business. Family Fundamental Interpersonal Relationship Orientation theory was the theoretical grounding. Business structure differed by entrepreneur gender in both direct and indirect spousal involvement. Both couple types were highly connected with their firms having high nurturance and affiliation scores. When couple discrepancies were compared, more male entrepreneur couples had shared meaning on business‐oriented nurturance questions compared with female entrepreneur couples. The opposite was true for shared meaning on relationship‐oriented nurturance. For all affiliation questions, more male entrepreneur couples had shared meaning than did female entrepreneur couples. Clinical applications of resulting instruments are discussed.     

Family Structure,Policy Shocks,and Family Business Adjustment Choices

This research used survey data collected between 2005 and 2006 in rural Kentucky to empirically investigate how different types of rural households in Kentucky cope with the changes in economic environment during the post-tobacco buyout by employing two different family business models, the Agricultural Household Model and the Sustainable Family Business Model. Data were analyzed using a multinomial probit model. The results indicate that multi-generational households were more likely to invest in low risk investments and less likely to employ a family member off-farm than couples with young children. Therefore, family structure plays an important part in the types of adjustment strategies chosen by farm families. The results also indicate that the Sustainable Family Business Model is a better predictor of the observed correlation between family structure and family farms’ choices of adaptation strategies.     

Feminist Insight on Gendered Work: New Directions in Research on Women and Entrepreneurship

This paper discusses research on female entrepreneurs in conjunction with feminist theory on gendered work. I explore the ways in which much of the research on women's experiences of entrepreneurship focuses on identifying similarities and differences between female and male business owners, and on providing explanations for the differences identified. While such an approach is useful in compensating for the exclusion of women in earlier studies of business ownership, it does not illuminate how and why entrepreneurship came to be defined and understood vis-à-vis the behaviour of only men. I argue that existing knowledge on women business owners could be enhanced through reflection on two issues — first, on the essentialism in the very construction of the category of ‘the female entrepreneur’ (which prioritizes sex over other dimensions of stratification) and second, on the ways in which the connections between gender, occupation and organizational structure differently affect female and male business owners.     

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS? BUSINESS OWNERSHIP GROWTH BY GENDER ACROSS THE AMERICAN URBAN LANDSCAPE

This study identifies the determinants of growth for male and female business ownership in a subset of U.S. counties. The results indicate that there are important characteristic and behavioral differences between the male and female populations in each county that affect regional changes in business ownership for each gender. In particular, the education level of males and females as well as the local family structure impact the propensity for firms owned by each gender differently. A Blinder‐Oaxaca type decomposition, a novel approach in the context of regional outcomes, demonstrates that although the effect of characteristic differences is larger, the behavioral differences are key to narrowing the gender disparity in business ownership. (JEL L26, R2, R3)     

Women in Business-owning Families: a Comparison of Roles,Responsibilities and Predictors of Family Functionality

The purpose of this study is to compare groups of women associated with family businesses and ascertain predictors of functionality. The sample consisted of 589 women divided into five groups based on their roles in the business. Of interest were various combinations of work at home, in the family business, and outside the business and how multiple roles affect the family. The women varied on several characteristics with female business managers less likely to be married than other women and generally operating smaller businesses. The women were not significantly different on levels of family functioning. Family goal success, satisfaction with business role, and being married were positive significant predictors of family functionality. Higher levels of household tension were negatively associated with family functionality. Family therapists and family business consultants must be cognizant of the multiple role responsibilities of women associated with a family firm.     

Family Home Businesses: Who Buys Health Insurance?

This study uses data from the Cooperative States Regional Research Project NE-167 to examine the factors that influence family home business owners in purchasing health insurance. Results indicate that net business income, full-time work, and a hospital reimbursement rate are positively related to the likelihood of buying health insurance although income from other sources is negatively related to purchasing it. Being male, a contractor, and having more education also indicates a greater probability of buying insurance. Implications for working with self-employed families are discussed.     

Fertility expectations and ethnic identity among Mexican-American adolescents: an expression of cultural ideals

1980 survey data from 2 secondary schools in Arizona are studied to explain the differences in expected fertility of Mexican American and Anglo adolescents. Mexican Americans have maintained higher fertility rates than the national average, and this study helps clarify how cultural heritage and socioeconomic status relate to family formation patterns. The model, which is based on expected fertility rates of adolescents which parallel those of adults, predicts higher fertility rates for minority group members at every level of socioeconomic status. Male adolescent Anglos expect an average of 2.27 children, whereas female adolescent Anglos expect only 2.11. In both instances for Mexican Americans, the expected number is higher: 2.78 for males, 2.68 for females. Mexican American adolescents who speak Spanish at home are more likely to expect 3, 4, 5, or more children, whereas those who speak English at home are more likely to remain childless or to expect less than 2 children. Similarly, the adolescent with a Mexican born father is more likely to expect more children than the adolescent with a native born father. Tucson residents are less likely to expect 2 or more children, while Nogales (80% Mexican origin) residents are more likely to expect 3, 4, or 5 children. The acculturation factors that help to explain the high birth rate expectations of Mexican Americans are: 1) language, 2) generation, and 3) neighborhood. At every level of expected educational attainment and occupational level, Mexican Americans expect more children than Anglos. Socioeconomic status of the family of origin is the crucial variable linking fertility to socioeconomic status. The actual fertility of minority groups should not be mistaken for the expected fertility of minority groups; both are subject to different influences. However, differences in fertility expectations of Mexican American adolescents and their Anglo counterparts parallel the differences in the actual fertility rates of these groups.     

Small Business Success Among Men- and Women-Owned Firms in Rural Areas1

Abstract Rural women have difficulty finding good jobs. Ownership of small businesses offers an alternative but the sales and income of women-owned firms are significantly lower than those of men-owned firms. Compared with men, women owners are more likely to operate smaller and newer businesses; however, these differences do not completely account for the gap in gross sales between men- and women-owned businesses. The strongest influences on business success are firm size, corporate status, and industrial sector. Though significant, the owner's gender is less important than these organizational characteristics. The factors influencing success of small businesses generally are the same for men- and women-owned businesses. More research on business networks and the start-up phase of small businesses is necessary for a better understanding of the sources of gender differences in success.     

The Role of Learning Context in High School Students’ Financial Knowledge and Behavior Acquisition

Using social construction theory, associations between student and classroom characteristics and high school students’ financial knowledge and behavior acquisition after studying a financial planning curriculum were examined. Prior to curriculum study, Whites, those growing up in a farm family business, and those who were working had higher financial knowledge; male and female knowledge differed by content. After curriculum study, females, those not growing up in a farm family business, and those who were not working gained most from curriculum study. While Whites, those who were working, and males exhibited more positive behaviors prior to curriculum study, after curriculum study, students living in states having financial mandates and those who did not grow up in a farm family business increased their positive behaviors most.     

Access to microfinance and intra household business decision making: Implication for efficiency of female owned enterprises in Ghana

Inadequate access to credit contributes to poverty among especially women in developing countries. It is evidenced that in patriarchal societies, males are likely to influence investment decisions when loans are granted to their spouses or female relatives. However the existing literature is inconclusive on whether this influence is positive or negative. This study empirically examines the impact of access to microfinance by women, and male involvement in business decision making on efficiency of small scale enterprises in northern Ghana. We found very low level mean technical efficiency of 40% indicating that output of the enterprises could potentially be more than doubled without employing additional inputs. Moreover access to microfinance increases efficiency by 11%; and enterprises with male spousal influence were less efficient than their counterparts that were independently managed by the women. Furthermore, enterprises owned by women who managed more than one business operated at relatively lower efficiency levels.     

Trafficking in meth: an analysis of the differences between male and female dealers

Male and female meth dealers exhibit numerous common characteristics and patterns. For example, both can be relatively heavy users and both have similar (long) criminal records. However, both groups show important distinctions in their drug dealing patterns. This exploratory study compares 34 male and 26 female meth dealers (N = 60) who were involved in the same criminal justice system of a single western state during the same time period. Among other things, the findings indicate that male dealers treat their trafficking activities more like a business, have more customers, make more money, and are more likely prepared for violence while dealing than females. In contrast, female dealers have more education, including graduate school, have been arrested less often and are more willing to try drug treatment than male dealers.