Are women leaders selling themselves short?
It's a statistic you often hear: The number of female-owned businesses has grown at twice the rate of male-owned firms in recent years. But a recent survey found some discouraging facts.
Late last year, researchers from Babson College released a global study of women entrepreneurs. While they found that plenty of women are embarking on this career path, fewer women than men believe they have the capabilities to start and run businesses.
The differences between women and men go beyond that, according to Candida Brush, a professor of entrepreneurship at Babson, and one of the authors of the report. Women across the world had lower expectations of growth for their businesses than men. In developed economies, twice as many men as women expected to add 20 or more employees to their companies. In tough times, everyone thinks growth will be slow, but "women still have about half the aspirations men do," says Brush.
Even more interesting? Women in the U.S. were more worried about failure -- citing it as a barrier to entrepreneurship -- than women in less developed parts of the world. Part of this may be sheer economic reality in developing countries: Selling fabric on the street in Colombia isn't a high risk proposition if you have nothing else you can do to earn money, whereas women entrepreneurs in the U.S. are often leaving secure jobs with benefits. But still, you'd think education and more access to capital would give women more confidence, not less.
Women's businesses are often less well capitalized than men's. The world of angel investors and venture capitalists is a notorious old boys club. But there is some encouragement here for women worried about seeking funding: Brush is in the middle of some research (not yet published) analyzing applicants to an angel investment fund. She's found that companies with women in the management team were no less likely to secure funds than those with only men.
The biggest obstacle seems to be getting women to believe they have companies worth investing in.