Women Entrepreneurs and Success

Abstract

More and more women enter entrepreneurship, be it in Germany or around the world. Enterprises founded by women entrepreneurs play a more and more important role and can make an important economic contribution. Still, we need to know more about the topic of success and women entrepreneurs. Often, women business owners and entrepreneurs are seen as less successful than their male colleagues but research does not call the previous definition of success into question. Therefore, this chapter takes a closer look at the concept of “success” in general, in order to develop a model of women entrepreneurs’ success which includes both individual and contextual aspects. Building on this model, we present results from an empirical study which draws on interviews with women entrepreneurs and key experts in Germany. We investigate the question of success of women entrepreneurs based on their personal and business goals and motives in order to shed light on their individual understanding of success.