Entrepreneurship: Do Women Handle It Better?
“Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world” rightly quoted by Hillary Clinton for the progressive women of the modern times. In order to explore, whether women are better entrepreneurs as compared with men, let us first re-connect by elucidating about highest satisfying career path world-wide of entrepreneurship and a promising career trajectory which has turned the heads of the researchers globally towards this buzzing topic. Entrepreneurship can be regarded as the process and a capability to grow, shape up and manage a business venture owning equally the yields and loss of it. The entrepreneurs, especially the new age ones, play a crucial role in any economy. Hence, entrepreneurship has been successful in guarding an enterprise and balanced footing in the global market. However, being entrepreneurial is an attribute, which is free from any gender prejudices but in our patriarchy, it is mostly correlated with men unmindful of their entrepreneurial calibre and vital skills. Still, men are considered as monarchs in the male-oriented kingdom of entrepreneurship.
In recent past, women with their dexterities to successfully balance work and home have gradually started out-pacing the opposite gender. In 2011, CNN claimed for women, that it has happened first time in history that the womenfolk are more literate and more aspiring and justifiably more successful than men.
The Journal of Entrepreneurship and Organization Management made a comparative study, which highlighted that women as entrepreneurs are more sovereign, more positive and more critical thinking than men. Since ancient times, the womankind has always been considered an exemplification of only love, devotion, and sacrifice. Their dreams and desires were seldom given honour. But over the period, the old school thought of the populace has now begin to change with the acknowledgement given to the female force for their contributions in personal or professional space.
Women are now not just family managers, but they have exalted to become dominant benefactors to the economy. Gradually, the womenfolk have started controlling the business world. To mention, many 500 Fortune companies like, General Motors, IBM have female CEO’s. Inspirational entrepreneurs like Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson and managing director of Biocon, Kalpana Saroj, Chairperson of Kamani Tubes or Vandana Luthra, founder of VLCC Health Care Limited, appositely validates that today’s women entrepreneurs are scaling unknown heights of success without any fear or failure.
Countless researches and studies on start-up pursuits across the globe confirmed that female-led organizations generated more revenues than those by men, and that women are more competent leaders. In a Harvard Business Review of 2012, it was stated that female leaders were better at all levels of business execution, be it problem analysis and solving, innovation or initiation which are all the pivotal components of powerful entrepreneurs. Observing the businesses of present day’s times, they are run mostly by females only.
The report of the 6th Economic Census (2014) released by the Indian government points that nearly 14% of the total entrepreneurship in India is served by women. To comprehend what makes women give men a leading-edge in the entrepreneurial world and overtake them, we need to exhibit some decisive factors which label them as high performers and successful leaders.
The foremost quality in which women supersedes men is their strong sense of empathy to consider and understand the problems and wants of their team members thus winning their respect and loyalty. A supportive and co-operative teamwork is imperative for formulating better strategies and for the companies to remain as high achiever, which is possible, only if the employer is empathetic in nature. Collaboration is another salient factor for becoming a successful entrepreneur. So much so that even the Fortune 500 companies constantly collaborate with other business enterprises to maintain positive relationships and partnerships with other corporate houses and female entrepreneurs focus more on such collaborations than men, creating a significant impact on their business.
One of the integral entrepreneurial characteristics matching with both the genders is the risk –taking quality, but here also females take a lead as skilled entrepreneurs because they are known to take calculated risks mindful of its boon and bane for securing productive outcomes of the business. Resilience is an ability of triumphing over the adversities and hurdles and converting them into opportunities, and women as entrepreneurs were found to be more resilient than men, in a survey done by Accenture in 2010 in nearly 20 countries including India on women leaders and resilience, attested women to be a bit more resilient than men.
The managerial gurus are of the opinion that females are high revenue convertors than men as instead of focusing on the enterprise as whole they prefer to watch each component of business minutely and separately assisting them to expand their customer base. According to the researchers, the companies led by females are generating a 35% higher ROI than the organizations run by men. Another fundamental postulation for entrepreneurial success is the aptitude to produce unique and unconventional consumer goods for the competitive world. An entrepreneur needs to be creative and innovative to grow and succeed. It is no hidden truth that women are born creative; hence in this context also, women surpass men in their novel ideas.
The Harvard Business Review has placed emotional intelligence as a cardinal leadership knack for a leader to conquer his emotions and manage relationships positively at work. Time and again, through various analytical investigations, females have been accepted to score better than males in having higher emotional intelligence, a must-have skill for a leader in the entrepreneurial world.
Future is Female!
The factors stated above verify that today’s women continue to remain determinant in the cluttered business world, despite many societal stigmas. They are confident and have the inherent qualities to bring exceptional concepts to revolutionise the entire entrepreneurial world. They are now in the new era of women empowerment. They are excelling as competent entrepreneurs and aiming to create their own benchmark in the new era of women empowerment.
