کارآفرینی به عنوان یک راه حل: جذابیت خود اشتغالی برای زنان و اقلیت ها

In this paper, we discuss the experiences that women and minorities encounter in organizational settings that result in frustration and discontent with corporate life and their opportunities for advancement. We suggest that such experiences push many of these individuals out of organizations, attracting them to entrepreneurship as an alternate route to both personal and professional success. Our discussion includes an examination of the issues that give rise to these experiences and a consideration of how entrepreneurship appears to provide a solution to them. It also identifies some of the potential pitfalls of entrepreneurship for women and minorities. In our concluding comments, we urge organizations to recognize the unique problems women and minorities face and the necessity of addressing these problems if they are to retain these potentially valuable members of the workforce.

Recent years have witnessed a dramatic increase in the popularity of entrepreneurship. The exploding interest in owning or starting a small business has resulted in record-breaking numbers of new business formation. In 1998 alone, an estimated 898,000 new firms with employees opened their doors for business—the highest number ever, and a 1.5% increase from 1997 (U.S. Small Business Administration [SBA], 1999). In fact, from 1982 to 1998, the number of business tax returns filed in the United States increased 73%, totaling 24.8 million in 1998. One impetus for the increased popularity of entrepreneurship is the spate of corporate downsizing and restructuring efforts that have forced employees to exit organizations. But it is clear that this is not the only impetus. In increasing numbers, people are choosing to become entrepreneurs even when there are other options open to them. Acknowledging this trend, business schools, of which one of the most recent has been Harvard Business School, have made adjustments in their curricula that now requires a course on entrepreneurship in the first year of study (Leonhardt, 2000). Becoming an entrepreneur, it is believed, is not only potentially very lucrative, but also provides individuals with challenge and the opportunity to maximize their power, autonomy, and impact. Amidst the general thrust towards entrepreneurship, there appears to be a disproportionately large number of women starting their own businesses. Although 3.9 million women as compared to 6.6 million men declared self-employment to be their primary source of income in 1997, this represented an increase of 48% for women as compared to an increase of 1.5% for men over a 15-year period (U.S. SBA, 1998) generating $1.15 trillion in sales and employing 9.2 million people, but their businesses also were growing at a faster pace than other businesses and the economy as a whole (Center for Women's Business Research [CWBR], originally founded as the National Foundation for Women's Business Ownership [NFWBO], 2001b). In fact, the CWBR estimates that between 1997 and 2002, the number of women-owned firms grew at twice the nationwide rate (14% for women-owned firms compared to 7% nationwide). There has also been a disproportionately sharp rise in the number of businesses owned by minorities. Between 1982 and 1997, the number of businesses owned by minorities more than doubled, for an estimated total of 3 million businesses, generating $591 billion in revenues and employing 4.5 million workers (U.S. SBA, 2001b). Although 90% of small business owners were White in 1997, the pecentage increase from five years earlier was only 4% for Whites, compared to 84% for Native Americans, 30% for Asians, 30% for Hispanics, and 26% for African Americans U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), 2001a and U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), 2002, May. Furthermore, from 1997 to 2002, the number of minority women-owned businesses grew at a rate four times faster than all U.S. firms and over twice the rate of all women-owned firms; in fact, it was estimated that in 2002, one out of every five women-owned companies would be owned by a minority (CWBR, 2001a). The aim of this paper is to identify the special issues faced by women and minorities that may help to explain their disproportionate interest in self-employment. We propose that although there is a tremendous general appeal of entrepreneurship, there is a special appeal to women and minorities who are likely to encounter experiences in corporate life that “push” them toward self-employment. In addition, we propose that whereas there are no doubt unique issues for members of some of these groups, the experiences of women and minorities are often quite parallel, leading them to seek self-employment as a career alternative for similar reasons. Specifically, we believe that women and minorities view entrepreneurship as a solution to problems that they encounter in the traditional workplace-problems that appear to them to be fixed and unlikely to change. What follows is an examination of some of the issues that are of concern to women and minorities in corporate contexts and a discussion of why self-employment is seen as a way of alleviating them. First, we will make some distinctions among types of entrepreneurs that will help to structure our discussion.

Over the past decade there has been an explosion of interest in entrepreneurship, particularly by women and minorities. In this paper, we have considered some of the issues that discourage women and minorities from pursuing careers in organizations, issues that they see as obstructing their advancement and stopping them from achieving the type of success to which they aspire. There are numerous parallels in the experiences of those in these two groups and the concerns that push them away from work in traditional corporate settings and toward self-employment as a solution for achieving personal and professional success. Although the allure of entrepreneurship is great, it is not a cure-all for the ills that beset women and minorities in organizations; in fact, we take the point of view that many of the same problems are likely to surface, but in a different form. Nevertheless, entrepreneurship holds the promise that individuals' career success will rise or fall on their own merits—not on the preconceptions and prejudices of others in the work setting. This is very appealing. In these dynamic times it is inevitable that many talented and highly skilled individuals will choose self-employment over being an employee of a corporation. What is critical is that this not happen for the wrong reasons. If women and minorities are leaving organizations because they are frustrated and unhappy, not because they sincerely want to be entrepreneurs, then this is a sad and potentially costly loss both for these individuals and for the organizations in which they work. Organizations do not have to sit back helplessly and watch this happen. Rather than allowing frustration and discontent to persist without addressing it, they can act on the issues that provide the impetus for women and minority employees to leave organizations. Admittedly, many of these issues have a long history and originate in social norms not in the organization itself, but change efforts focusing on outcomes, not causes, can be highly successful. By targeting these unwanted outcomes, initiatives that can improve the lives of women and minorities within the organization are very feasible. One thing seems painfully clear. Without positive action aimed at creating organizational settings that facilitate the personal and professional goals of women and minorities, organizations may be discouraging the very people whom they most want to retain from moving on to what they see as greater opportunity at less personal cost.