Women’s business advocates criticized the Small Business Administration for failing to properly support a national program for female entrepreneurs at a Senate hearing.
Critics complained that the SBA was consistently late in paying out grants to Women’s Business Centers, slowing their work. Only about 30 percent of this funding arrived on time, according to an audit by the Government Accountability Office.
The centers are important in helping to foster the growth of women-owned firms, which still lag behind men’s companies in revenue and the number of employees, said Senate Small Business Committee Chair John Kerry.
Women own about 16 percent of firms with employees, according to statistics cited by Kerry; only 3% of women-owned firms have revenues greater than $1 million, half the percentage for men, he said.
Such data should be used to guide the SBA in tailoring the centers to the needs of women entrepreneurs, said leaders of groups of women entrepreneurs.
“By highlighting those differences we should all realize that we may not be able to treat all small businesses the same,” says Erin Fuller, executive director of the National Association of Women Business Owners.
Photo by MSDesigns.
Anne Florenzano on October 1st, 2007 at 2:33 pm
It’s odd that the SBA lags in it’s funding support of Women’s Business Centers, when a study released last week by the SBA’s own Office of Advocacy shows that “when controlling for factors typically influencing entrepreneurial
performance, gender does not affect new venture performance.” The study is titled “Are Male and Female Entrepreneurs Really That Different?” by Erin Kepler and Scott Shane - check it out at http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs309tot.pdf. The authors add, “…several factors - differing expectations, reasons for starting a business, motivations, opportunities sought and types of businesses - vary between the genders, and these result in differing outcomes. In essence, men are not inherently better owners, they have different business goals.”
As I said in my blog last week, the study shows that like so many other issues of gender, women are neither better nor worse at it than men; just different. To measure success by one standard - annual sales, for example - is to discount the success of the many women who have carved out income, life/work balance and independence through their small business enterprise, be it ever so humble. For many women, the smaller business may be the smarter choice. I hope that the SBA listens to the critics, and their own study, and steps up their commitment to funding for women entrepreneurs.
Julie Lenzer Kirk on October 2nd, 2007 at 6:45 am
As a successful entrepreneur myself and after teaching a woman-only course in high-tech entrepreneurship, I can say FIRST HAND that I have seen that there ARE differences that need to be addressed. It isn’t that we as women need to use different accounting or marketing, but our learning styles can be different as well as our goals. It isn’t that we need ’special education’, rather, different consideration…