Strategic DirectionHow male and female bosses learn to manage: Gender differences are important, but can also bemisleading

Article information:To cite this document:, (2015),"How male and female bosses learn to manage", Strategic Direction, Vol. 31 Iss 10 pp. 33 - 35Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/SD-07-2015-0117

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How male and female bosses learn tomanage

Gender differences are important, but can also be misleading

A powerful elite

A report by the Department of Trade and Industry in 2005 indicated that femaleentrepreneurs represent 6.7 per cent of the UK population and 14 per cent of allbusinesses.

They make an annual contribution of £50-70 billion to the gross value added to the UKeconomy each year. Taken together, these statistics paint a picture of women who are morethan holding their own when compared with male counterparts.

Nevertheless, the culture surrounding entrepreneurship is inherently masculine and tosome degree that reinforces the view that women are not suited to running a business.Popular entrepreneurial role models, pace the likes of Karren Brady on The Apprentices(BBC TV), tend to be White males, with little reference to females. The dominant view is thatfemales are a limited group in terms of entrepreneurial activity or even of the potential tobecome entrepreneurial. It might also be added that when female entrepreneurs are beingpraised in the media, an emphasis is often placed on the male characteristics that allegedlyenabled to get where they are today!

Therefore, this study which is exploratory in nature aims to examine the differences in thelearning experiences between men and women in the business environment. Specifically,the study investigates how critical events affect the learning behavior of entrepreneurs andwhether the critical events are likely to be different between male and femaleentrepreneurs.

Ten case studies

The study also aims to investigate what entrepreneurs learn, how they learn, who they learnfrom and what prompted such learning. It presents the results from ten case study firms todemonstrate different types of learning experience between male and female smallbusiness owners.

Many issues surrounding entrepreneurial learning are of course common to both men andwomen, and some of these have been explored in previous studies. Such learning willdepend on common issues such as trial and error, learning from others, problem solvingand feedback from customers. Much will depend, too, on the owner-manager’s ability andwillingness to change their existing “mindset” from reflection and analysis of critical eventsand what lessons were learned.

The ten companies in the case study were run by an equal number of men and women,from sectors including catering, retail, nursery school, business services, distribution andmanufacturing. Exploratory first interviews were followed by face-to-face in-depth

DOI 10.1108/SD-07-2015-0117 VOL. 31 NO. 10 2015, pp. 33-35, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 0258-0543 STRATEGIC DIRECTION PAGE 33

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questioning. Here, participants reflected on their stories regarding the main influences/motives for starting a business, their experiences in running the enterprise. In laterinterviews, themes that had emerged earlier were explored in more depth; data analysiswas used to explore all the findings. The whole process took place over five years.

Leading with confidence

Among critical incidents, cash flow problems (three firms) and high staff turnover (two)were among the more prominent issues which vexed male entrepreneurs. Among women,lack of confidence and lack of flexibility were significant factors in four and five enterprises,respectively. Perhaps as a corollary of the confidence issue, five women talked about howthey had learned about acquiring the confidence to do what needs to be done to run thebusiness.

One woman said: “Success, for me, doesn’t necessarily mean doing something differently,but having confidence in what I am doing [. . .] and confidence comes when I’msuccessfully doing things the way I want to do them”.

Other female entrepreneurs were clearly thinking along the same lines. An owner-managerin the catering industry, who also mentioned lack of confidence, provided evidence of abusiness plan she prepared herself after some sessions with a business adviser. Thefindings therefore suggest that entrepreneurial learning is triggered by critical events andthat those critical events are different for female and male entrepreneurs.

In the same way, there are differences in the way that both men and women tend to learnfrom others. With men, there was a greater emphasis on learning from the likes ofaccountants, solicitors and business advisors. One male owner-manager talked of how inthe past four years he has learned human resources management from his businessadvisor, and financial management and cash flow management from his accountant. Withina business services firm, another man learned some element of financial control from hisbank manager “to run a flexible bank overdraft with credit card facilities”. The maleowner-managers in three more enterprises also learned from a wide circle of stakeholdersincluding accountants, customers and employees.

Having the knowledge

By contrast, the female owner-manager of a textile manufacturing firm indicated that shedid not use any external assistance to develop their funding application or in any other areaof management and entrepreneurship. She stressed during the first interview that she hadsufficient knowledge of entrepreneurship generally. Therefore, she did not see what shecould learn from anybody or why she should seek external assistance whether fromenterprise agencies, accountants, bank managers or solicitors. It does appear that, overall,female entrepreneurs are less likely to engage with such specialists and are therefore morelikely to learn from a narrow group of people (families, for example) than their malecounterparts.

An important part of the findings of this study is that, on some issues, the difference is notapparent, and, given the small sample size, definitive conclusions cannot be made. It isclear, however, that entrepreneurship is a learning process based on the willingness andability of the owner-managers to learn from their close-knit network, whether involvingsimilar situations to those encountered in the past or entirely new scenarios.

Women are also more comfortable with so called “single-loop learning” which focuses onlearning via routines and immediate tasks and can help to boost confidence. This studyalso puts a greater emphasis on satisfaction and confidence in everyday work than themore traditionally researched factors such as profit, size and growth.

PAGE 34 STRATEGIC DIRECTION VOL. 31 NO. 10 2015

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Comment

This review is based on “Entrepreneurial learning: gender differences,” by Ekanem (2015).There’s some food for thought here for people on gender issues in management. Theobservation about women learning to do “what needs to be done to run the business” isperhaps a euphemism. While women might have a less naturally aggressive approach,they can learn it if needs be.

Reference

Ekanem, I. (2015), “Entrepreneurial learning: gender differences”, International Journal ofEntrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 557-577.

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Keywords:Gender,Sex,Small firms,Entrepreneurial learning

VOL. 31 NO. 10 2015 STRATEGIC DIRECTION PAGE 35

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