Making the Entrepreneurial Transition: Understanding the Challenges of Women Entre-Employees

ISBN-13: 9783031292101 / Angielski

Sydney D. Richardson

Opis

Entre-employees are those who work for an organization while running their own company, with no interest in the transition to full-time entrepreneurship. This book explores the history, challenges, and leadership development of women entre-employees. The author examines the impact of COVID as well as race and sexism in the workplace on women entre-employees. She also discusses how women are more likely to embrace community-driven businesses, which often face slow growth. Given these challenges, the author proposes ways that employers can support women entre-employees, who have been proven to be valuable workers. Using the life stories of women entre-employees, this useful addition to the entrepreneurship field will appeal to entrepreneurship scholars as well as those interested in topics related to leadership and gender at work.

Spis treści

Chapter 1: Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the topic of entre-employees and the ways in which this book came to be. While entrepreneurship among women is expanding, research does not explain that many entrepreneurs are also employees, thus being an entre-employee.  An entre-employee is one who works for an organization, while running their own company (Hankel, 2018). The goal is not to eventually transition full-time entrepreneurship, but to live in the middle of the two identities. This chapter will include an explanation of my positionality as an entre-employee. In this introduction, I will explain my argument about women entre-employees and aspects that make them a unique group in the 21^st century.

Next, I will explain my research process along with my reasons for choosing narrative inquiry for this project.  I will also explain my theoretical framework of social entrepreneurship theory (Gupta et al., 2020; Mair and Marti, 2006) and ethic of care (Held, 2007). Aside from my positionality and frameworks, this chapter will include the data collection, transcription and analysis process.  I will also describe the research participants who informed this study and end with an overview of each chapter.

Chapter 2: History of women entre-employees

The purpose of this chapter is to present the history of women entrepreneurs in the 1900s, with a major focus on poor white women and women of color (a group not often discussed in literature). Compared to men, women continue to own businesses at a lesser rate (dos Santos, 2019; Minniti and Naude, 2010). Research shows entrepreneurship as gendered and rooted in families (Yadav, 2016). “Female entrepreneurship faces barriers imposed by society, formal institutions, cultural and economic conditions, which makes it challenging to start or develop a new enterprise” (dos Santos, 2019, p. 24).  Due to social constructions of gender, women were judged based on society’s expectation of them, which left them restricted economically, academically, and politically (dos Santos, et. al., 2019; Yadav, 2016). As women gained rights, their access to various opportunities increased, such as obtaining jobs.  However, gender discrimination kept them from higher-level positions and higher salaries, such as that equivalent to men. Therefore, research on female entrepreneurship did not emerge until the mid-1970s (Yadav, 2016).

Afterwards, there was more of a recognition of women entrepreneurship; since then, research has continued on this subject. However, there was a caveat when it came to women in business: while middle and upper class White women may not have always worked and developed their own businesses out of necessity, poor White women and women of color usually had no other option than to work for themselves (sometimes with their spouses, if married). The subject of women entrepreneurship was viewed no differently than male entrepreneurship, even though there was a difference; therefore, when entrepreneurship was discussed in the mid-1970s, there was not a recognition that pursuit might be different for different groups.

Entrepreneurship in the United States is not new to women of color. Due to racial discrimination during the post-Emancipation era, African Americans started their own businesses and practices (Umoh and Garrett, 2020). From hair care products (i.e. Madam C. J. walker) to self-owned doctor’s offices, African Americans have owned their own businesses and created jobs for others as a way of life. As access to jobs and promotions increased among African Americans, entrepreneurship lessened, but never stopped. During recessions, the U.S. often sees an uptick in black-owned businesses (Danes et al., 2008).  Ethnically, African American businesses not only tend to create jobs for others, but also rely heavily on the African American community (church members, family, friends, etc.) for growth. Therefore, the success and expansion of African American businesses take on a community aspect as well. Worldwide, 231 million women launched businesses in 2018-2019 (Bullough, et. al., 2021). In 2016, the number was 161 million worldwide (Strawser, et al., 2021). However, barriers and limitations experienced by women entrepreneurs are gender specific and usually stem from cultural values and norms (Bullough, et. al, 2021, p. 985),. Although times have progressed, gender role expectations remain consistent.

Chapter 3: COVID’s Influence on Women Entre-employees

The purpose of this chapter is to explain the ways in which the Coronavirus pandemic influenced working women to start or expand their own businesses. The pandemic impacted all employees, but women in particular. Jobs eliminated during the pandemic were mainly jobs performed by women (Ewing-Nelson, 2021). By December of 2021, 44.4% of the jobs lost due to the pandemic had not returned. Not only have jobs been eliminated, but some employees chose to leave their positions altogether (full-time as well as part-time). The largest decline in demographics leaving the workforce were black women (154,000) (Ewing-Nelson, 2021).  Compared to men across races and ethnicities, black women, Latina women, and women with disabilities lost jobs during the pandemic and did not return to the workforce. However, there was another group of women affected by the pandemic.  The ones who kept their jobs, but chose to launch their businesses anyway.

The participants of the study shared similar stories, where most either had their work hours cut, others switched jobs due to non-flexible work schedules, and others had to advocate for themselves to continue to work from home in order to care for children or elderly relatives. However, within the world of entrepreneurship, the participants noticed an increase in clients/customers, aligning with reports on women businesses. African American and Latina women were the largest group to become entrepreneurs between 2014 and 2020, although they did not receive as much business funding as other racial groups during COVID (Fulcher, 2021).  Half of new businesses that launched during the pandemic were by women of color.

For the participants, disillusionment with the workforce served as the energy that they needed to either expand or launch their businesses. While no one left their jobs for good, they all learned ways to balance their purposes in both roles of entrepreneur and employee. For some participants, this meant negotiating work hours that allowed them to stay engaged with their families, businesses, and full-time work.  For others, this meant leaving one job to move to another with aligning values, and then using those same values within their businesses.

Chapter 4: Women of Color Entre-Employees

The purpose of this chapter is to explain how racial discrimination influenced women of color to start their own companies. “Racial categories have a history of being constructed in ways that play into national politics and stereotypes, and they are constantly in need of revision…as they are neither completely biological nor scientifically determined” (Frey, 2015, p. 10). Racial discrimination in the workplace is not new, but not expected in the 21^st century. By the year 2045, experts project that current racial minorities will be the majority (Frey, 2015). Racially minoritized women still work to become the first of anything in the workplace. However, working to be the first of anything comes with its challenges, and these challenges contributed to women in this study building their own businesses.

According to Roberts and Mayo (2021), while black professionals are gaining mid to high-level positions, they are still experiencing more acts of discrimination and slow career progression within the workplace (Zuniga, 2002). In comparison to their white counterparts, black professionals are less likely to be hired or promoted, and more likely to feel uncomfortable within the workplace. The minority participants of this study felt attacked if they were not present during the nine to five o’clock timeframe, even if they worked later hours or on the weekends. Other minority participants noted the racism that took political form within their organizations, which led them to create companies that embraced diversity. “Black women, by all indications, are more likely to experience higher levels of discrimination in hiring, promotion and general harassment, and it is most often race based (Ortiz and Roscigno, 2009, p. 355). All participants recognized that the pandemic greatly showed them what they needed to feel supported and safe in the workplace.

Chapter 5: Gender and Entre-employee

This purpose of this chapter is explain how sexism in the workplace and society causes women to start their own businesses. “Promoting gender equality requires an understanding of the systemic barriers that women face, which differ due to the intersection of different identities such as gender, race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and national origin” (Folberg, 2020, p. 464). The participants of the study discussed how sexism affected them in the workplace and at home. Many of them formed their businesses with women and diversity in mind because they acknowledged that in many companies, women and racial minorities were not a central focus. Sexism in the workplace also occurred due to many of the participants being mothers/caregivers. Societies often incorporate a “motherhood tax”, penalizing women from progressing in the workplace due to being a mother (Ortiz and Roscigno, 2009). The motherhood tax is continuously prevalent in the workplace.

“The availability of paid parental leave may impede women’s ability to work, as women are disproportionately responsible for unpaid care work” (Folberg, 2020, p. 464). As many of the participants mentioned, they suffered discrimination within the workplace based on simply living their lives as women and mothers, and the pandemic made this incredibly clear. For those teaching in higher education, they saw their jobs cut due to the pandemic and students not logging onto the computer. Other participants in different fields strongly advocated for their jobs, which suffered when they had to balance caring for children, along with completing their own jobs. Because women were the main or sole caregivers during the lockdown, work was almost unbearable. What made this worse was that employers did not take action in a way that benefitted women employees.

Following the pandemic, women employees, especially those who were caregivers faced another hurdle: employers wanted them to return to work, but their lives had drastically changed.  As one participant stated, launching her own business was the only option, as her father-in law moved in with her:

 

My husband is a doctor, so the pandemic increased his work.  I took a pay cut because my classes weren’t filling [in community college].  We then sold our house and bought a bigger one so that my father-in-law could move in with us.  He didn’t move in, by the way, and now I care for him a few days a week in his senior nursing home, while raising the kids. I still work part-time because that’s all that I could do, but launching a business allows me to work on my terms.

 

The participant’s story is not uncommon.  While times have changed in that women are becoming CEOs and leaders in various industries, there are still reminders that women are suffering in the workplace due to stereotypes, policies, and practices surrounding gender roles. Launching their own businesses allowed the women to have some control over their work and other priorities.

Chapter 6: Ethics and Social Responsibility of Women Entre-employees

The purpose of this chapter is to explain the role of ethics and social responsibility within women entre-employees. According to research, women are more prone to become social, need-oriented entrepreneurs, more so than men (Cardella et al., 2020). As seen in the participants’ responses, their reasons for starting their own companies was to fill a gap within their field in order to help others, mainly other women and/or racial minorities.  Whether it was providing financial coaching in a field saturated by male coaches, or helping companies understand how diversity and inclusion works from a day-to-day perspective, the participants launched their businesses to make the world better. This goal of making the world better was foundational to their businesses and expanded to their hiring and employment practices. As one participant stated: 

 

I made it a point to hire other women and people of color to be a part of my team. My goal is to see others expand in this work.

 

While value is in who gets hired, value is also seen as who/what is most important. Stereotypical perceptions limit what women have been able to do with business launching (Bullough et al, 2021), as well as within the workplace.  Because women, with a few exceptions, are primarily caretakers of the home, they may not always be respected on the job if caretakers are seen as subpar. While caretaking is a common role for multiple women, it does not impede their ability to work efficiently and lead in the workplace. The women participants chose to eliminate those stereotypes in their own businesses, by providing flexible work policies (Bullough et al., 2021; Strawser et al., 2021) and seeing the workday outside of a nine to five job. These types of business may not be as attractive for funding opportunities as others, though. The number of socially oriented businesses started by women are 30% higher than the ones launched by men (Strawser et. al., 2021, p. 52; Xavier, 2012). Within the study and within research, what was important to the women entre-employees revolved around caring for family, the community, and minorities/underserved population. The participants’ parents and grandparents, especially the women in their families, often modeled this.

Chapter 7: Community of Care for Women Entre-employees

The purpose of this chapter is to explain women social entre-employees as extensions of the women role models in their communities. Women entrepreneurs seem to face constraints such as family limitations, financial obstacles, limited supportive infrastructure, and unfavorable business environments (Panda, 2018).  Whether it is attempting to balance family caretaking duties or not having access to funding streams, women have a difficult time navigating entrepreneurial life. One reason is the type of business path that they choose. Unlike male entrepreneurs, women tend to take on need-oriented businesses. This means that women entrepreneurs see a need within the community and create a business to fill that need. While men might do the same, theirs is more profit based; whereas women create more community driven businesses (Stefan et. al., 2021), of which slow growth is often an impact.

All of the participants shared life stories, explaining how they were taught to be socially conscious and care for others. The teachings came from their own family members, especially mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers. This chapter will further explain the role of women caring for communities, often in entrepreneurial ways (i.e. cooking for others; taking are of other’s children; acting as midwives for poor families; etc.). I will further explain how the participants were influenced to make care and serving aspects of their own businesses.

Chapter 8: Leadership Development of Women Entre-employees

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the ways in which being a women entre-employee develops leadership skills.

 

“We, along with other critical scholars, recognize that it is ethically problematic that

leadership practices that are meant to ‘care’ by taking account of employees’ satisfaction and well-being, are at risk of being eroded by managerial notions and reduced to the imposition of appropriated behaviours.” (Johansson and Edwards, 2021, p. 318)

 

Studies show that women have a hard time establishing themselves as leaders due to the views of society (Folberg, 2020).  If women act the way society envisions them (meek, quiet, polite, gentle), then they are perceived as likable, but are not viewed as leaders, only followers. However, if women follow stereotypical male leaders and act as they do (brave, outspoken, aggressive), then they are still not seen as leaders, just disliked people (Ortiz and Rodriguez, 2020). Therefore, many women leaders are in a difficult situation.

Leadership within this study focused on incorporating an ethic of care (Held, 2007; White, 1999), advocacy, and resistance.  Operating their own businesses, working with clients, and employing others, allowed the women participants to take negative leadership skills that they had seen portrayed in their own bosses, and establish their own kinds of leadership.  The ones employed seemed to follow the leadership style: ethic of care. Ethic of care (Held, 2007) discussion occurs within the medical community and even politics, but rarely in leadership studies. It is a normative theory that holds that moral action centers on interpersonal relationships and care or benevolence as a virtue. The concept of ethic of care emerged from studies showing that women, in general, engaged in the world through relationships, and those relationships involved areas of care such as active listening, acceptance of others, valuing others, and maintaining and repairing relationships (Held, 2007; White, 1999).

Feminist theory does not depict relationship-oriented leadership as weak or substandard. Instead, ethic of care works against more logical and rational thoughts of ways to lead. In this case, the one engaging in ethic of care is working for themselves and the other person, as that comprises an efficient team based on the wellness of human beings. This leadership style, authentic in nature, embodied by the participants took place when they considered how they interacted with their direct reports, as well as their employees within their businesses. As leaders, the participants felt responsible for their team members; therefore, ensuring that they cared for their colleagues’ mental and physical health (Held, 2007).  An ethic of care also meant that the participants had to advocate for themselves and their colleagues.

Ethics of care emphasized freedom of choices and action, not following rules based on power structures. Using care as a way to approach morality, and ethic of care from a feminist lens emphasizes relationship, sympathy, empathy, compassion, and dependence in order to help one another. Within this, ethic of care is a moral duty, not based on reason and logic, but on emotion and relationship.

            The participants described this type of care within leadership. The participants discussed the way in which they led their employees and engaged with their customers, based on wanting the best for the other. As one participant said: “I want my employees to take a vacation. If they find a better position, I’ll help them get there.  I’ll ask them what they need because that’s what it means to care for people.” An ethic of care is also about the growth of a person (Held, 2007), which these women entre-employees emphasized. 

Stemming mainly from gaining confidence as entrepreneurs, the participants integrated ethic of care aspects into their roles within their full-time jobs. This included incorporating flexible work schedules, mental health days, assisting colleagues in advancing in their careers, and giving their direct reports permission to rest when they needed to.  Not only did the participants advocate for mental and physical health, they recognized that doing so was an act of resistance against the negative effects of capitalism (Folberg, 2020).This resistance meant that the participants could be their authentic selves and recognize that they were still being professional; however, this did come with backlash.

All of the participants discussed backlash within the workplace once they incorporated ethic of care and advocacy.  If they advocated for themselves, then their superiors deemed them aggressive. Many of the participants discussed having a hard time figuring out how they should act in their roles to avoid stereotypes such as brash or the angry black woman. While all of the participants discussed troubling moments of leadership within the workplace, they all saw running their own businesses as a way to combat that.

Chapter 9: Ways Employers can Support Women Entre-employees

The purpose of this chapter is to explain ways in which entre-employees contribute to a company and ways in which employers can support entre-employees. I will start the chapter by explaining how entre-employees benefit the companies in which they work.

The coronavirus pandemic showed employers three things: 1) productivity was possible when working from home; 2) employees often worked more hours than when they were in the office; and 3) employees were better able to balance full-time work with other interests and responsibilities because of working from home. As stated in previous chapters, one of the main reasons the participants launched their own businesses was due to not feeling valued or respected in their place of work, often as a result of not being allowed a flexible schedule.

One way that employers can support women entre-employees is by offering flexible work options. While the flexible work option would help women entre-employees in operating businesses, it would also assist more women who work in other ways.  As women who work are still the main caretakers of family (not solely children), a flexible work option allows them to be productive at work at a variety of hours that work for their own lives.

Another way to support entre-employees is to highlight their work, if it could benefit the company. As women entrepreneurs are more so social entrepreneurs, looking to better the world in a particular field, it would be possible that an employee’s business could be beneficial to the company, assuming that it is not in conflict with the company. One participant teaches at a university and operates a financial coaching business.  That business could easily collaborate with the university to provide services to students. In this way, the entre-employee not only grows her list of clients, but she also gives back to an institution that she already invests herself in.

A final way that employers could support entre-employers is through equitable workplace policies. Oftentimes, companies create workplace policies for the mythical employee: Single, male with no responsibility. In reality, all employees regardless of gender identity are multifaceted, hold many interests, and are responsible for at least one person. Changing workplace policies that are inclusive of a diverse workforce benefits everyone.

O autorze

Sydney D. Richardson is Department Chair and Associate Professor of Leadership Studies, Adult Education at North Carolina A&T State University. Her research focuses on dynamics of women entre-employees, women non-traditional learners, and methods of narrative research.

Blurb

Entre-employees are those who work for an organization while running their own company, with no interest in the transition to full-time entrepreneurship. This book explores the history, challenges, and leadership development of women entre-employees. The author examines the impact of COVID as well as race and sexism in the workplace on women entre-employees. She also discusses how women are more likely to embrace community-driven businesses, which often face slow growth. Given these challenges, the author proposes ways that employers can support women entre-employees, who have been proven to be valuable workers. Using the life stories of women entre-employees, this useful addition to the entrepreneurship field will appeal to entrepreneurship scholars as well as those interested in topics related to leadership and gender at work.

Sydney D. Richardson is Department Chair and Associate Professor of Leadership Studies, Adult Education at North Carolina A&T State University. Her research focuses on dynamics of women entre-employees, women non-traditional learners, and methods of narrative research.