While a popular book once proclaimed that “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus,” that’s not really true when we’re talking about entrepreneurs. A new Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy-sponsored report finds that men and women entrepreneurs share more similarities than differences. The study’s main conclusion is that, when other factors are controlled, gender does not affect a new venture’s performance. Women and men often decide to become entrepreneurs for different reasons, but these differences don’t appear to have a huge effect on the bottom line. What are some key differences? Men are more likely to start a technology business and to start a business with a primary objective of making money. Women, in turn, are more likely to operate in low risk/return business sectors. Women were more likely to operate a business with positive revenue, while men are more likely to own a firm with employees. In the past, these many interesting trends led some researchers to suspect major differences in male and female entrepreneurs. This new research contends that most of the differences in firm performance are due to past industry or start-up experience as opposed to gender differences.
Download the September 2007 Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy-sponsored report, “Are Male and Female Entrepreneurs Really That Different?” by Erin Kepler and Scott Shane.
© 2007 The Public Forum Institute and the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship at www.publicforuminstitute.org/nde.
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