Researching Female Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment

1. Researching Female Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment presented to The World Bank - Europe and Central Asia Region Panel 2: Workshop on Sharing the Growth Dividend: Women in the ECA Region by Sammie Robinson, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Management & Marketing ■ College of Business ■ Prairie View A&M University

2. Presentation Agenda • Introduction • Research Perspective & Strategies • Insights from Current Research • Reactions?

3. Introduction • Background • Research Influences and Experiences

4. Research Perspective & Strategies Investigating issues faced by women in Central Europe and Asia Answers depend on questions raised

5. The Appropriate Approach Asking New Questions

6. Approach to research The sociology of radical change Radical Humanist Radical Structuralist Subjective Objective Interpretivist Functionalist The sociology of regulation Burrell & Morgan, 1979

7. New questions … Radical Humanist How can the increases in the number of women entrepreneurs take place in society ? Radical Structuralist What kinds of changes would have to take place in society to enhance the status of women as entrepreneurs and business owners? Interpretivist How do women view entrepreneurship and business ownership (in their own words) Functionalist How do women compare to men?

8. New questions … Radical Humanist How can the increases in the number of women entrepreneurs take place in society ? Radical Structuralist What kinds of changes would have to take place in society to enhance the status of women as entrepreneurs and business owners? Interpretivist How do women view entrepreneurship and business ownership (in their own words)? Functionalist How do women compare to men?

9. Research Approach • Raises questions that generate different answers • Privileges “women’s voices” • Takes “context” into account

10. Methodological Landscape • Researching in a social context • Role of theory • Working with an emergent design • Collecting case study data • Generating researchable propositions

11. What did we do? • Broad description of research approach, and actual activities

12. Model for Data Collection Preparing forFirst Contact First Contact Getting the Participants Step Two Step Three Step One Setting the Stage Step Four Post Interview Wrap-up The Group Interview Next Study Site or Research Activity Step Six Step Five

13. Insights from Current Research • Attributes represent analogues to traditional functionalist criteria • Transferability • Credibility • Confirmability • Dependability

14. Preliminary Themes • The double minority challenge; • Calling and community orientations; • The significance of family history and family support; • The trade off between passion and growth; • The nature of the social networks and social organization; • The meaning of success

15. Reactions?