FROM RHONDA ABRAMS PLANNING SHOP:
Here’s late breaking news: women and men are not alike. But are successful entrepreneurs the same regardless of whether they’re male or female?
You’d almost certainly run into administrative and student opposition if you created different syllabi for male and female students. But, if there are indeed gender differences, should you include additional/different topics to help address these differences?
“In most economies, the prescriptions for success are based on studies of male entrepreneurs. In the past two decades, the rise of women entrepreneurs helps us to better understand the factors leading to start-up success and growth of both men and women entrepreneurs,” said Babson College Vice Provost of Global Entrepreneurial Leadership, Candida Brush, author of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2014 Women’s Report.
Male and female entrepreneurs are overwhelmingly more alike than different. However, differences do persist. In reviewing the GEM report and literature from a number of sources, these seem to be the findings:
Females are somewhat less likely to take risks.
Women feel less confident in their ability to succeed and worry about failure more. 46% of women felt less confident compared to 59% of male founders, with lower start-up rates in economies where women were most concerned about failure.
Women are more likely than men to spend their income on education and raising children.
Women who know other female entrepreneurs are more likely to become entrepreneurs themselves.
Women who work with teams of three or more are more likely to scale than solo female entrepreneurs.
What does this potentially mean for you and your courses?
Expose students to more successful female entrepreneurs as potential role models and/or mentors
Address issues of how to overcome fears of risk and failure, helping students increase their confidence in taking on new challenges
Help students learn how to build teams to launch businesses rather than taking a solo route.
“Several of the identified gender differences indicate that support and encouragement from key people can especially benefit women in their efforts to found successful technical companies. This finding suggests that efforts to promote women’s entrepreneurship should ensure that women have access to the mentoring and support networks that they view as important contributors to their success.” — Kauffman Foundation Report, The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur.