It goes without saying that men and women are different. Books like John Gray’s “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” help make that statement too visual. But is that also true for entrepreneurship? If you make a comparison between a male entrepreneur and a female entrepreneur?
Of course, it is easy to believe that there is a large gender gap. Prejudiced or not, people quickly assume stereotypes, especially when it comes to gender. Pierre-Nicolas Schwab conducted an online survey of 840 European entrepreneurs asking their opinion on topics related to entrepreneurship. However, this does not explain whether men and women differ in their entrepreneurial spirit.
Organizational Innovation
Other researchers found no differences in the willingness to innovate between 1,405 Spanish male and female entrepreneurs. In their article “ CEO gender and SME’s innovativeness: evidence for Spanish businesses ”, they conclude: “there are no significant differences between male and female companies in the willingness to introduce innovations.” However, they find that Hispanic male entrepreneurs are more inclined towards process innovations than their female counterparts. Which is not the case with product and organizational innovations. Again, there are little to no differences between male and female business owners.
Now we are talking about running a business. Owning a business; about entrepreneurship. So about seeing and exploiting opportunities and creating social value. So why should they be different because of their gender? Just because we believe men and women are so different? Last time I checked, both types of entrepreneurs are from Earth.
Former Entrepreneur
In the article: “ Are male and female entrepreneurs that different? ”, Erin Kepler & Scott Shane found no effect in new venture performance between male and female entrepreneurs. Vivek Wadhwa, a former entrepreneur turned academic, found virtually no differences between tech company founders for men and women.
Time to take a closer look at the gender differences and make a comparison between male and female entrepreneurs. Especially the entrepreneurial skills of those who run companies with staff. Perhaps this article can add valuable insights to female entrepreneurship statistics. And with it the image of female entrepreneurs.
Male and female entrepreneurs are different, but not where you would expect it to be
A good way to compare the differences between male and female entrepreneurs is to look at what makes them entrepreneurial in the first place, their entrepreneurial competencies. It is often stated that male entrepreneurs take more risks and have more self-confidence and that this distinguishes them as successful entrepreneurs. Let’s see.
In a recent study, we compared a group of 1638 female and 1882 male entrepreneurs with employees, a total of 3520 entrepreneurs, in the Netherlands. These employers received entrepreneurial coaching . The very first step of the coaching was to do an E-Scan, a tool for measuring entrepreneurial attitude , and discuss their entrepreneurial profile. It gave them a clear picture of their stronger and weaker competencies as an entrepreneur and what they need to work on together with their coach to improve business performance.
Entrepreneurial Index
The scan generates the Entrepreneurial Index, which ranges from 0-100. It indicates how enterprising someone is. It is based on the Entrepreneur Scan, which is often used to measure and develop entrepreneurship. The E-Scan is a data-driven and research-based scan in which you can compare yourself with other entrepreneurs and see and read how you score as an entrepreneur on essential competencies and what type of SME entrepreneur you are.
Men (55.1) score slightly higher than women (54.6) on their Entrepreneurial Index. But the difference is not enough to call it significant. Thus, female founders demonstrate the same level of entrepreneurship as their male counterparts. If we take a closer look at their entrepreneurial profiles, there are differences between men and women. However, not where you would expect them to be.
Entrepreneurial Spirit
It goes without saying that men and women are different. Books like John Gray’s “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” help make that statement too visual. But is that also true for entrepreneurship? If you make a comparison between a male entrepreneur and a female entrepreneur?
Of course, it is easy to believe that there is a large gender gap. Prejudiced or not, people quickly assume stereotypes, especially when it comes to gender. Pierre-Nicolas Schwab conducted an online survey of 840 European entrepreneurs asking their opinion on topics related to entrepreneurship. However, this does not explain whether men and women differ in their entrepreneurial spirit.
Introduce Innovations
Other researchers found no differences in the willingness to innovate between 1,405 Spanish male and female entrepreneurs. In their article “ CEO gender and SME’s innovativeness: evidence for Spanish businesses ”, they conclude: “there are no significant differences between male and female companies in the willingness to introduce innovations.” However, they find that Hispanic male entrepreneurs are more inclined towards process innovations than their female counterparts. Which is not the case with product and organizational innovations. Again, there are little to no differences between male and female business owners.
Now we are talking about running a business. Owning a business; about entrepreneurship. So about seeing and exploiting opportunities and creating social value. So why should they be different because of their gender? Just because we believe men and women are so different? Last time I checked, both types of entrepreneurs are from Earth.
Former Entrepreneur
In the article: “ Are male and female entrepreneurs that different? ”, Erin Kepler & Scott Shane found no effect in new venture performance between male and female entrepreneurs. Vivek Wadhwa, a former entrepreneur turned academic, found virtually no differences between tech company founders for men and women.
Time to take a closer look at the gender differences and make a comparison between male and female entrepreneurs. Especially the entrepreneurial skills of those who run companies with staff. Perhaps this article can add valuable insights to female entrepreneurship statistics. And with it the image of female entrepreneurs.
Male and female entrepreneurs are different, but not where you would expect it to be
A good way to compare the differences between male and female entrepreneurs is to look at what makes them entrepreneurial in the first place, their entrepreneurial competencies. It is often stated that male entrepreneurs take more risks and have more self-confidence and that this distinguishes them as successful entrepreneurs. Let’s see.
In a recent study, we compared a group of 1638 female and 1882 male entrepreneurs with employees, a total of 3520 entrepreneurs, in the Netherlands. These employers received entrepreneurial coaching . The very first step of the coaching was to do an E-Scan, a tool for measuring entrepreneurial attitude , and discuss their entrepreneurial profile. It gave them a clear picture of their stronger and weaker competencies as an entrepreneur and what they need to work on together with their coach to improve business performance.
Develop Entrepreneurship
The scan generates the Entrepreneurial Index, which ranges from 0-100. It indicates how enterprising someone is. It is based on the Entrepreneur Scan, which is often used to measure and develop entrepreneurship. The E-Scan is a data-driven and research-based scan in which you can compare yourself with other entrepreneurs and see and read how you score as an entrepreneur on essential competencies and what type of SME entrepreneur you are.
Men (55.1) score slightly higher than women (54.6) on their Entrepreneurial Index. But the difference is not enough to call it significant. Thus, female founders demonstrate the same level of entrepreneurship as their male counterparts. If we take a closer look at their entrepreneurial profiles, there are differences between men and women. However, not where you would expect them to be.
Competencies that show no difference in gender where you would expect it to
Male and female entrepreneurs score equally high on their risk appetite.
The general idea is that men have more guts and take more risks, but not according to our data. Women approach things differently, but are not more or less willing to take risks. Women invest their own savings, rather than borrow the money. But that doesn’t make them more or less risk averse. Adi Gaskell confirms the similarity between men and women with research by Michael Frese: women are just as capable of taking risks as men.
Erin Kepler and Shane Scott write in their article on the differences between men and women that female founders were more likely to prefer companies with a lower risk/reward. In addition, male entrepreneurs were more likely to create technology-intensive companies, companies that are more likely to lose their competitive advantage. But that is more a result of their performance drive (see below) than their risk appetite.
Female and male entrepreneurship; both are equally confident
Self-confidence is another oft-cited trait that male entrepreneurs are considered to possess more than their female counterparts. According to our data, no significant differences were found between men and women. There is one area that most women struggle with. They seem to show a greater tendency towards self-criticism than men when faced with failures. Men are much more likely to blame market factors, the economy or even employee issues for any misfortune, while women blame themselves for failure. That may be true. However, this does not mean that female entrepreneurs are less self-confident than men. This is also evident from our data.
Male and female entrepreneurs with staff score equally on their creative mind
When entrepreneurs were asked to list their strongest competencies, women were 10 percent more likely to list creativity. However, this does not mean that they would score higher than men. Although creativity appears to differ between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs, the prevailing view seems to be that men are more creative than women. But according to our data, that is not the case. Female and male entrepreneurs are equally creative. Creativity is essential for innovation.
Competencies that show gender differences wherever you would expect it
Male entrepreneurs have a stronger performance orientation than female entrepreneurs
You would expect a strong performance orientation in men. Perhaps because it has so much to do with entrepreneurship that people expect men to score higher than women. There is little difference in the time spent on their business. Kepler & Shane report that men spend slightly more time on their (new) business than women. Brittney Morgan, who wrote the article, “ Male vs. Female Entrepreneurs: How Are They Different? ”, it aptly concludes: “…women are more likely to sacrifice time for themselves and their social life for their business, while men are more likely to sacrifice time with their partner and with their children.” Another interesting study in the Journal of Small Business Management showed the differences between male and female high-growth entrepreneurs in high-tech incubators. High-growth entrepreneurs generally demonstrate strong self-management strategies due to the innovative nature of high-tech entrepreneurship. Three ways of self-management were measured
- Self goal setting (specific tactics to control one’s behavior, such as setting smarter goals )
- Self-cueing (notes, reminders, to-do-to-day lists, etc.)
- Self-dialogue (also called motivational self-talk)
All strategies correlate significantly with innovation measured by increased intellectual property. Men may show more ambition. On the other hand, women were found to set self-goals more often than male entrepreneurs. Male entrepreneurs again use “self-cueing” more than women do.
Male entrepreneurs show more dominance than women
Most expect this difference. It can reinforce the idea of the ultimate entrepreneur: knows very well what he wants and is decisive . The flip side of this powerful behavior is that men don’t ask for help. Women are less afraid to ask for help when they need it. Men think they have to go it alone, which makes it much harder to ask for help.
Male entrepreneurs are more pioneers than female entrepreneurs
The entrepreneurial mindset is strongly associated with being creative and having a pioneering spirit. Someone who easily comes up with multiple ideas and sees business opportunities. Our data confirms that male entrepreneurs are more likely to demonstrate a Pioneering mindset than females . Creativity is closely related to the thinking style of the Pioneer in Entrepreneurship. But men and women do not differ in their creativity.
Women entrepreneurs do business differently than men, but are no less enterprising
It is all the more interesting to note that men and women are not inferior to each other when it comes to creativity or setting up a business. Women do business in a different way than their male colleagues, but are certainly no less enterprising than men. All the more reason to promote female entrepreneurship and perhaps no longer consider it a different species?
