The Impact of Gender on Small Business Management: Preliminary Findings of a British Study

Abstract

Dr Peter Rosa, Lecture with the scottish enterprise fondations, stirling unviersity and sara carter, sernior research fellow with the deprtment of Marketing, stratchclyde univerisity. Glasgow, Scotland, directed a three year study on the impact of Gender on small business managment, funded by the UK economic and social science research council. Daphne Hamilton and Helen burns were research fellows working on the project. in spite of growing research into women in business, the quesion of how far gender difference exists in small business ownership and managment has not been rigorously addressed, mainly because most studies have been exploratory and insfficiently sophisticated in terms of of methodology. the research aimed to explore the issue of gender idiffrence in small buisness ownership and managment in a much more systematic and rigorous way, through a quantitative survey of 300 female and 300 male business properietors from three sectors: textiles and clothing, business services, and hotels and catering. the survey ws supllmented with thiry qualitative interviews of sposuse of properietors of both sexes. This paper introdcue prelliminary finding from the research which show that the impact of gender is considratable but often complex. of special note are complication of co-ownership with men and the impact of copetitive sectoral forces taht could shape managment practice.