Female Business Research Articles

Female business leaders and the incidence of fraud litigation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine whether companies with female executives and directors are less likely to be involved in financial reporting fraud litigation.Design/methodology/approachThe authors build a data set comprised of companies from the Stanford Securities Class Action Clearinghouse database that were involved in fraud litigation along with a control set of companies listed on the Compustat database for the time period 2007-2013. The authors use a logistic regression model to determine the likelihood of fraud when there is at least one woman in an executive position or on the board of directors.FindingsThe authors find that the presence of at least one female leader decreases the likelihood that the company will be involved in litigation for financial reporting fraud. The results are robust after controlling for sample selection bias by using a propensity score matched sample.Practical implicationsThe findings add to the literature which indicates that women tend to be more risk averse and are more committed to ethics policies. The study also supports previous research that indicates large firms with inflated market value are more likely to be subject to fraud litigation.Originality/valueThe study combines the literature on the characteristics of women in leadership positions with the study of fraud litigation. The authors find evidence that the presence of either female executives or female directors lowers financial reporting fraud risk.

The Gap Between Educational System and Job Market in International Business Law: A Model of Specialization for Solving the Problem

One of the aims of higher education is obtaining advanced skills and specialty, and thereby offering better job opportunities after graduation. Examining the current educational system of Master level in Iran, we came to the conclusion that there is a lack of practice on necessary specialization in the domain of International Business Law. The train Master students receive is not directed towards their future profession, which leads to their being unable to have a good performance. In order to measure students’ awareness of their academic and professional future and their attitude toward this major, a standard questionnaire was distributed to 34 female and male International Business Law students, admitted from 2009-2014. Since the students’ attitude toward their job in the future showed they had a high expectation of their future occupation, and since the unemployment rate was reported to be 8.8%, there is a concern about the prospective profession of the graduate students in this major. A profession-oriented model has been developed in an attempt to eradicate the problem. In this model, the students will be categorized as 8 different sub-majors after completion of the first general semester. The students’ entrance to these sub-majors is a matter of interest and talent, which will be assessed by a panel of experts from International Business Law, Psychology, and Educational Consulting. These 8 groups are Lawyers, Arbitrators/Judges, Businesspeople, Legislators, Researchers, Negotiators, Legal Advisers, and Professors which offer possible job opportunities for the graduates. Then the teaching methodology in each sub-major is in accordance with the prospective employment.

Promoting Gender Equality Through Business Education Programme for Entrepreneurship in Bayelsa State, Nigeria

The study examines strategy for promoting gender equality through business education programme for entrepreneurship in Bayelsa State. Two research questions were formulated to guide the study. The descriptive survey research design was adopted. The population for the study comprised of 200 female business education students from the department of vocational and technology education, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State. The population size was manageable and there was no sampling. The instrument for data collection was a 10 item structured designed by the researcher. Three experts in business education, measurement and evaluation face validated the instrument. The research questions were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. Based on the findings of this study, the following conclusion was drawn; that all the strategies identified are considered effective for promoting gender equality through business education programme for entrepreneurship development. Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations were made: women should be empowered educationally to take advantage of entrepreneurship programmes; there should be serious campaign to dispel the belief the belief that women do not need education and this should be done culturally, religiously and legally.

Gender, family and business

Purpose This paper aims to examine the relationship between family responsibilities and family support, on the one hand, and decisions by men and women concerning owning a business, as well as how many hours they work in that business. Design/methodology/approach The authors used data collected by the US Current Population Survey between 1989 and 2011 and had a starting sample of 1,258,430 individuals, and a final sample of 27,147. Findings The authors found that both women and men are more inclined to own a business when they are married, have children or receive financial support from their spouse. They also found widespread gender differences in these analyses. The influence of family-related issues on owning a business is stronger for women than for men. Originality/value The findings indicate that male business owners work longer hours if they have young children. In contrast, female business owners reduce their work hours if they are married, have young children and receive support from their spouse. Implications are discussed.

Self-employment of men supported by female breadwinners

Purpose This paper aims to look at the multiple embeddedness of male self-employment by focusing on entrepreneurship of men supported by female breadwinners. Design/methodology/approach Following a qualitative research design, the paper presents three case studies drawn from a research project, where 40 narrative interviews were conducted with female and male business starters. Findings The concept of embeddedness that was developed for female business founders can also be applied and specified for business startups of men. Creating and conducting a business or becoming self-employed is for men closely related to and interwoven with gender norms, household and partnership dynamics. Men who are not the family breadwinners benefit from the male connotations of entrepreneurship. Male self-employment, even if of precarious or low pecuniary relevance, allows them to fulfill the norms of masculinity and employment. Research limitations/implications Given that this is a qualitative study only based on three case studies, more research is needed to estimate the frequency of this type of male self-employment. Originality/value The importance of the context for the decision on starting-up and conducting a business is shown for male entrepreneurs. The study demonstrates how on the household level the male entrepreneurship norm is transformed into everyday lives and fits into gender arrangements. In emphasizing the non-economic dimensions of entrepreneurship, the paper opens the discussion about the interconnections between gender and entrepreneurship for men as well.

Gender, Management Styles, and Forms of Capital

Extant research notes a tendency to propound the idea that female managers are secondary to men. Gender differences constitute an ethical issue and the discursive constructions of gender management are central to research in business ethics. Drawing on evidence gathered from a time–space intersection that has been widely neglected by research in this area, we address whether female business leaders develop gender-stereotypic management styles as well as their propensity to adopt masculine management patterns such as making risky decisions and implementing formal management systems (e.g. accounting reports). Our findings suggest that gender-stereotypic management styles are chosen strategically and target-driven, which implies a selective use of masculine and feminine management styles. Furthermore, as part of the masculine approach, female business owners adopt risk-taking decisions and implement formal management systems. Our results provide support for the argument that gender is context dependent and, hence, the findings of this study may be useful for contemporary jurisdictions featuring male-dominated societies and a strong intervention by the State in the economy.

Exploration of Key Success Factors that Influence Business Performance: The Experiences of Women Micro-entrepreneurs from Mazovia Voivodeship of Poland

Abstract Women-owned businesses are one of the fastest growing categories of firms in the world, but they are greatly understudied in countries from the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) [Zapalska et al., 2005]. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between business success predictors and the performance of female-owned micro-enterprises from the Mazovia Voivodeship in Poland during the period 2011–2013, using an Internet-based survey questionnaire. The data were collected by the CAWI (computer assisted web interview) and CATI (computer assisted telephone interview) methods. Exploratory factor analysis, correlation coefficients analysis and multivariate regression models were deployed to investigate the empirical data. This study contributes to the limited body of literature on factors that positively affect the business performance of female entrepreneurial undertakings, using the context of the Polish experiences. Drawing on Gartner’s [1985] typology and “the resource-based view of the firm” theory, a theoretical research model was developed and verified empirically using three multivariate regression models. “Model A” displayed the highest explanatory power of the predicted dependent variable “Composite business performance” (R2 = 42,3). Our findings suggest that the most successful female business owners in the region were ideally 30–39 years old; completed a university education; had at least three years of business experience; displayed above average entrepreneurial orientation; and adopted a business strategy to deal with competitors. Moreover, the better performing women-owned micro-enterprises hired qualified and experienced employees (“hman capital”); offered products or services to domestic and international customers; were able to attract business sector clients; and had sufficient resources (“financial capital”). It is recommended that this research be replicated in other countries from the CEE region (e.g. Czech Republic) for comparative purposes.

Assessing Male vs. Female Business Student Perceptions of Plagiarism at a Southern Institution of Higher Education

Assessing Male vs. Female Business Student Perceptions of Plagiarism at a Southern Institution of Higher Education

Interpreting business partnerships in late Victorian Britain†

This article gives the first large‐scale assessment of business partnerships in England and Wales using business records within the population census for 1881. It seeks to understand the variety of ways that ‘partnership’ was used: explicit partnership, ‘de facto’ partnership, ‘joint’ activity, and asset ownership together. The article confirms that partnerships were chiefly between two people. Complexity and transaction costs largely precluded larger size and squeezed the partnership into a ‘middle ground’ between the sole proprietor and the corporation. The main size contrast was between farms with small employee numbers, and larger non‐farm business partnerships. Generally differences in the gender of business owners have greater salience than sectors. Few female business partnerships employed more than four people (mean 3.4), while male partnerships ranged up to several thousand employees (mean 33.6), and 18.6 for mixed gender. While many women were involved in businesses, their opportunities remained restricted, and most were in partnership with male partners. Family structures were important, with three‐quarters of all identifiable partnerships having some form of family relationship, with a strong preponderance of single women in female‐only partnerships, married men in male‐only partnerships, and widows in mixed gender businesses.

Women on Boards in Finance and STEM Industries

We document that women are less represented on corporate boards in Finance and more traditional STEM industry sectors. Even after controlling for differences in firm and country characteristics, average diversity in these sectors is 24% lower than the mean. Our findings suggest that well-documented gender differences in STEM university enrolments and occupations have long-term consequences for female business leadership. The leadership gap in Finance and STEM may be difficult to eliminate using blanket boardroom diversity policies. Diversity policies are also likely to have a different impact on firms in these sectors than in non-STEM sectors.

Aerobic Capacity and Anaerobic Power Levels of the University Students

<p>The aim of study was to analyze aerobic capacity and anaerobic power levels of the university students. Total forty university students who is department physical education and department business (age means; 21.15±1.46 years for male and age means; 20.55±1.79 years for female in department physical education), volunteered to participate in this study. Anaerobic power was measured with Running Anaerobic Sprint Test (RAST). Oxygen consumption was estimated 20-m shuttle run test. We found that was aerobic and minimum anaerobic capacity of physical education students higher than aerobic and minimum anaerobic capacity of business students (P<0.05). On the other hand, we didn’t found differences between physical education female and male students and business female and male students in maximal anaerobic capacity and average anaerobic capacity (P>0.05). We found that was aerobic and minimum anaerobic capacity of female and male students in department physical education higher than aerobic and minimum anaerobic capacity of female and male students in department of business (P<0.05). In addition, fatigue index of female students in department physical education lower than fatigue index of female students in department of business was found (P<0.05). In conclusion, recreational sportive activities affect development of aerobic capacity, depending on this, aerobic capacities of the students having education at the physical education and sport teaching department are more advanced than the students of the business management department due to applied courses included in the curriculum, in addition to recreational activities, genetic factors are determinants of anaerobic capacities.</p>

Family embeddedness and business performance: evidences from women-owned firms

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the family context may affect female firms’ performance by contextualising the study within Italy and empirically analysing 307 Italian women-owned firms.Design/methodology/approach– By using ordinal regressions, this paper empirically investigates the influence of three dimensions of the family context on female firms’ performance, namely: the motivations to start a business; the support from the family once the business is established; and the mechanisms to achieve a suitable balance between work and family life.Findings– Overall, the results offer substantial support for the assumption that female business owners benefit from being pulled into the endeavour, from specific linkages with family and also from selected mechanisms to balance work and family life, thus contributing to show how strong the relationship between a firm’s performance and the family context is for women.Originality/value– Today female entrepreneurship represents an important economic driver worldwide, leading scholars to strongly advocate the need to shift the female entrepreneurship research focus from the analysis of women business owners’ characteristics to the investigation of those specific factors able to directly affect female firms’ activities. In this vein, this paper aims at pushing further into the still less studied domain of work/family intertwinement as, surprisingly, the impact that family-related factors exert on women-owned businesses’ performance is still under-researched.

Adjustment Strategy Use in Minority Family Businesses: Differences Across Gender

The objectives of this study were to explore the adjustment strategies employed by minority female owners of small family firms and to compare their use of adjustment strategies with those of their male counterparts. There were significant gender differences in the adoption of adjustment strategies among minority-owned family firms. The major findings of this study suggest that minority female business owners were more likely to reallocate family resources to help with business tasks and were more likely to intertwine both tasks than minority male business owners when demands were particularly great for the family or the firm. In addition, compared to male business owners, a relatively higher proportion of female business owners used volunteer help without pay during hectic times. Implications for business consultants and educators working with minority business owners are discussed.

The Moderating Effect of Social Environment on the Relationship between Entrepreneurial Orientation and Entrepreneurial Intentions of Female Students at Nigerian Universities

The objective of this study was to examine the moderating effect of social environment on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial intentions of undergraduate female students of Nigerian Universities. Female students were chosen because they are more susceptible to social pressures.One of the hypotheses was to test whether social environment moderates the effect of entrepreneurial orientation on entrepreneurial intentions. A quantitative research method (survey) was used to solicit responses from 120 final year undergraduate female students of three University Business Schools in the North, East and West regions of Nigeria.This method was used because Universities in Nigeria offer similar courses and the respondents, according to previous studies in other contexts, show a higher propensity to firm formation. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and hierarchical regression. The results indicated that entrepreneurial orientation (self-efficacy and education) had significant positive influence on entrepreneurial intention among female business students in Nigeria. It was also found that social environment (friends’ agreement) moderated the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (education) and entrepreneurial intentions among the students.Again, the study contributed to the scant literature on entrepreneurial intentions among people in developing countries especially Nigeria. Therefore, the government should focus on ways to encourage entrepreneurship awareness among university students in Nigeria to enhance entrepreneurial intentions and self-employment. The study was limited to female students. Future studies could compare the entrepreneurial intentions of male and female students.

Married, mom and manager – how can this be combined with an international career?

The purpose of this paper is to examine the experiences of females combining global careers, in particular, frequent international business travel and a dual-career family. With the increasing popularity of alternate forms of expatriation, females have the opportunity to follow a global career while being in a dual-career partnership and having children. Previous research has suggested that alternatives to long-term expatriation, such as international business travel, are considered more family friendly. Integrating family and international business travel, however, still poses many challenges to women. This paper examines the ways in which they handle this challenging situation according to social capital theory. It presents initial exploratory insights stemming from interview data including 25 female international business travelers living in dual-career families from four Western and non-Western countries on four different continents. These interviews, which were analyzed using template analysis, show common ways and similar experiences and understanding of integrating family and career life as female non-traditional expatriates across cultures. Differences remain, however, because of conditions in the local environment.

Women on Boards in Finance and STEM Industries

We document that women are less represented on corporate boards in Finance and more traditional STEM industry sectors. Even after controlling for differences in firm and country characteristics, average diversity in these sectors is 24% lower than the mean. Our findings suggest that well-documented gender differences in STEM university enrolments and occupations have long-term consequences for female business leadership. The leadership gap in Finance and STEM may be difficult to eliminate using blanket boardroom diversity policies. Diversity policies are also likely to have a different impact on firms in these sectors than in non-STEM sectors.

Shoplifting in eighteenth-century London: a source for female retailing?

The extent to which England's eighteenth-century ‘retail revolution’ brought opportunity to women has been a matter of prolonged debate, but most studies have relied on sources that indicate female business ownership. By contrast, a study of London shoplifting enables us to examine women's role in shopkeeping from a fresh perspective. Trial transcripts provide a wealth of information on the men and women who staffed the thousands of London shops that suffered this type of theft. Taking a sample of these cases between 1743 and 1807, the article explores what they can tell us about the proportion of stores that relied on female staff and reflects on how this finding relates to current understandings of women's retail activity in the period. Using the first-hand accounts given in court testimony, it discusses how the crime of shoplifting affected female shop workers at a personal and more strategic level, and the evidence presented of gender bias in the staffing of larger, more fashionable stores. It concludes that female-staffed shops had a higher relative risk of becoming victims of shoplifting crime and that in consequence this source, while yielding valuable new insights, is liable to over-represent the scale of women's participation in London retailing.

Understanding women's accommodation experiences on girlfriend getaways: a pragmatic action research approach

In the realm of women's travel, while the accommodation experiences and preferences of female business travellers have been investigated, little is known about the female leisure-traveller in this regard. This study investigates one of the growth sectors in women's travel – girlfriend getaways (GGAs), which are holidays taken by females with other females. An action research approach was employed to explore the accommodation needs of all these female travel groups in the Malaysian context. Using a five-stage approach which included in-depth interviews, a hotel stay for three groups of women on a GGA, focus groups and secondary data analysis, four themes were identified. These themes address feminine comforts, facilitating friendship, safety, and shopping and the use of discount promotions with GGA. Findings suggest that the needs of female leisure-travellers are distinct from those of women who travel on business. Recommendations for hotel management are made to enhance the GGA experience for women, notably providing spaces and activities to facilitate female bonding.

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

AbstractThis 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. (JELL26, R2, R3)

Bounded Entrepreneurial Vitality: The Mixed Embeddedness of Female Entrepreneurship

abstract Despite the recent increased interest in female entrepreneurs, attention has tended to focus on dynamic individuals and generic incentives without considering the roles of gender and place in entrepreneurship. In this article, we draw on the notion of mixed embeddedness to explore how time-and-place–specific institutional contexts influence women’s entrepreneurship. Drawing on primary data collected in Ghana, where exceptionally more women engage in entrepreneurial activities than men, we examine the scale and characteristics of female entrepreneurial activity, exploring the factors that account for this strong participation of women, and examine whether this high entrepreneurial rate is also reflected in their performance and growth aspirations. The findings reveal a disjuncture between, on the one hand, the vibrant entrepreneurial endeavors of Ghanaian women and positive societal attitudes toward female entrepreneurship and, on the other hand, female business activities characterized by vulnerability and relatively low achievement. The article shows how regulatory, normative, and cultural–cognitive institutional forces, which have been transformed over time by local and global processes and their interaction, are concomitantly propelling and impeding women’s entrepreneurial activities. We propose that the study of female entrepreneurs within economic geography could be advanced by analyzing the differing effects of the complex, multiple, and shifting layers of institutional contexts in which they are embedded.