Female Entrepreneurship Faces Stiff Headwinds, According to New Book


LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK, Jan. 11, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Nearly six out of every ten female teenagers and four out of ten female adults would like to start their own small business. They also feel equally strongly about giving back philanthropically to the community. However, their aspirations are routinely discouraged by their schools' 'take a job' rather than 'make a job' orientation and frustrated by an education that fails to provide an entrepreneurial mindset and the accompanying knowledge and skills, according to the authors of a new book on female entrepreneurship.

In their recently published book, "The New Female Entrepreneur: Creating and Sharing the Wealth," (Kendall Hunt Publishing Company) -- an unprecedented ten-year investigation of female entrepreneurs' antecedents, hopes and challenges -- the number of young females who either seek to become or actually are becoming entrepreneurs is shown to be on a dramatic upswing. However, authors Dr. Marilyn L. Kourilsky and Dr. William B. Walstad demonstrate that important questions remain as to whether these aspiring innovators are receiving the educational support they need to overcome key barriers to success.

"Females are now starting businesses faster than their male counterparts," says Dr. Kourilsky, Professor and Faculty Chair of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA and Director of the Institute for the Study of Educational Entrepreneurship. "Those females that do not learn about running the business 'at the dinner table' typically do not perceive they have access through the school system to the skills and knowledge that would enable them to have a shot at 'making a job' rather than 'taking a job'," said Kourilsky. "Many do not have a personal connection with a small business owner who might serve as a role model nor do they have a full appreciation for the challenges facing entrepreneurs. They also have no visibility into the community and societal benefits that derive from the social investments and activities of successful entrepreneurs."

At issue, contend the authors, is that parents, schools and the media do little to encourage entrepreneurship either through offering support and educational resources or, in the case of the media, by portraying female entrepreneurs as positive role models.

"The New Female Entrepreneurs: Creating and Sharing the Wealth" is based on national randomized surveys designed by the authors with the advice of national experts on entrepreneurship -- and carried out by survey researchers at the Gallup Organization. An innovative focus of the book is on the attitudes that females, particularly young females ages 14-19, have about entrepreneurship and philanthropy following the post-dotcom meltdown and the near epidemic of financial and fiduciary irresponsibility and fraud at some of the highest levels of corporate America.

According to the authors, despite a variety of limiting factors, women are being drawn into the entrepreneurial economy in record numbers, many from a corporate world they found to be too limiting and/or restrictive.

According to the authors, one in 11 women in the United States is a business owner. The number of privately held businesses owned 50 percent or more by women was about 10.1 million in 2002. These women-owned businesses account for almost half of all privately held firms in the United States, and generate $2.3 trillion in annual sales. They also employ 18.2 million people or about one in seven workers in the United States. However, according to the Small Business Administration, a significantly large percentage of women-owned businesses are sole proprietorships.

While the authors found that four out of ten adult women were interested in starting their own business, female teens manifested the most interest in entrepreneurship with 60 percent reporting it a career goal.

According to the authors, education in today's schools and college classrooms is failing dramatically to live up to its potential for lowering or removing barriers to entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurship education students receive -- if they receive it at all -- is simply inadequate, say the authors.

Specifically, too few female students have access to or take courses that develop their entrepreneurship knowledge and their understanding of the entrepreneurial process. They therefore are poorly prepared to leverage entrepreneurial thinking and skills in the development and growth of their own ventures or in their work as employees of other organizations.

"If more young females received the education and encouragement that would enable them to become successful entrepreneurs, there would be a significant increase in the entrepreneurial human capital of the nation," says Dr. Walstad, the John T. and Mable M. Hay Professor of Economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "We find America's female teens to be optimistic about the prospects of starting a business. If we lose the opportunity for them to succeed, we could lose ideas that would benefit consumers and economic and philanthropic contributions to communities."

"The New Female Entrepreneurs" provides insight into the potential for entrepreneurship among females and the obstacles that hinder it. The Kourilsky/Walstad team address the next steps for stakeholders and policy-makers in general as well as for parents, educators and successful female role models. They urge the appreciation, understanding, and nurturing of female entrepreneurship as a key imperative for the continued social and economic growth of our country.

About the Authors

Dr. Marilyn Kourilsky is Professor and Faculty Chair of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA and Director of the Institute for the Study of Educational Entrepreneurship. Previously, she served as Vice President of the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Dr. Kourilsky has created nationally implemented programs including Mini-Society, Entrepreneur Invention Society, MADE-IT (Mothers and Daughters Entrepreneurs - In Teams), Making a Job and EntrePrep. Her numerous honors have included the UCLA Campus-Wide Distinguished Teaching Award, the Greenfield Applied research Award, the National Freedom Foundation Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education, The EUCLAN Award for Innovation in Teacher Education, the Henry H. Villard National Research Award in Economic Education, and The John C. Schramm National Leadership Award. She has published extensively in scholarly journals and has authored or co-authored 17 books.

Dr. William Walstad is John T. and Mable M. Hay Professor of Economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Professor Walstad's scholarly works on economics and entrepreneurship education have been published in numerous economics and educational journals and he is the author of eight books. He is a recipient of the Villard Research Award from the National Council on Economic Education, and a Leavey Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education from the Freedom Foundation. Dr. Walstad serves as Chair of the Committee on Economic Education of the American Economic Association and is an editor of the Journal of Economic Education.



            

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