Women In Business And Their Significance To The Economy
In this essay I will be outlining what female entrepreneurship is and how they are significant to the economy. I will also evaluate the challenges females face in entrepreneurship and then evaluate my individual intrapreneurial skills and reflect on how to develop them further. Female entrepreneurs are women who organise and manage an organisation or business. Entrepreneurs in general are individuals who want to be their own boss. They start up business and organisations which they are passionate in, they may also do this in order to boost their confidence, keep themselves occupied, become self-employed or simply because they wanted to challenge themselves and try something new. Female entrepreneurs are very significate to the economy and bring various opportunities to the table. Females bring a different prospective than men, they are stereotypically more caring, patient, polite and intellectually driven. Economically they bring new initiative and out the box ideas for a wide target audience. Female entrepreneurs help target working women, stay at home mothers, and even retired women. In fact, it is estimated that 36 percent of all businesses are owned by women, this is an increase of 6 percent since 2007. Powerful and successful female entrepreneurs is only part of the story, from many research and statistics it has proven that Women-led companies preform twice as well as those led by men. female leaders make an immense difference to economy and without them the industrial economic rate in entrepreneurship will decrease dramatically. Also, investors and high positioned business leaders are wise to look towards female led businesses as they seek opportunities to maximise their benefits and returns. Studies show that female founded companies create over 60 percent more value for investors than those founded by men.
Bringing more women entrepreneurs into the marketplace, simply offers a chance of more successful businesses for example, Oprah Winfrey is one of the most successful, wealthy and driven female entrepreneurs. She has various profitable businesses and has managed to amass a sizable fortune, become one of the most powerful people in the entertainment industry, and yet maintain a sense of humility and compassion. She is mostly known for her work in the entertainment business and is one of the best entertainment entrepreneurs. Oprah founded her own production facility in 1988, Harpo Studios. Since then, it has grown into Harpo, Inc. which employed about 250 full-time staff at its peak in television and film production, magazine publishing and online media, though that number dropped sharply to just 20 employees in 2015. She is also co-founder of Oxygen Media which operates the Oxygen Network, a cable network for women reaching more than 54 million viewers. As well as all her success on the big screen, Oprah also invested in magazines and launched the “Oprah Magazine” in partnership with Hearst Magazines, a monthly magazine that has become one of today's top women's lifestyle publications. It now has a circulation of more than two million monthly readers and Fortune called it 'the most successful start-up ever in the industry.' In 1987 Oprah created The Oprah Winfrey Foundation 'to support the education and empowerment of women, children, and families in the United States and around the world.' The charity has awarded millions of dollars to organizations throughout the world to improve education and healthcare. In 1997 she founded Oprah's Angel Network to inspire people to make a difference in the lives of others. So far, the group has raised 80 million dollars from audience donations and some celebrity contributors. Overall it seems like Oprah Winfrey brings a large financial contribution to the economy and is without a doubt one of the best female entrepreneurs in the industry.
Another majorly successful businesswomen is Beyoncé Knowles. Beyoncé has had an amazingly long and diverse career for such a young woman, and every step of the way she’s shown belief in herself, in whatever she puts her mind to. In 2007 Beyoncé formed Parkwood Entertainment. In 2016 Parkwood signed its first three artists, all of them women. In April 2016 April she launched Ivy Park, a leisure clothing brand joint venture between Parkwood and Topshop, as well as investing in a water start-up, founded by women. As many entrepreneurs do, Beyoncé has branched out into ventures by networking with people who inspire her. No one can, or should, go it alone. For entrepreneurs wanting to diversify it’s important for them to consider different partnerships along the way. For many successful entrepreneurs their ongoing challenge is actually to challenge themselves and Beyoncé is an incredible example of this. Never one to rest on her success she transitions from album to album, movie to movie, business to business, determined to make each one better than the last. She’s most certainly achieved the iconic status she promised herself she would. Women could be the best they could possibly be and yet face many challenges and need to overcome unique barriers to entrepreneurship. Women-owned firms are still in the minority, and the hurdles faced by women who have embraced entrepreneurship are vast and often very different than those experienced by their male counterparts.
Women in business may feel like they need to defy social expectation. Women may feel as though they need to adopt a stereotypically 'male' attitude toward business: competitive, aggressive and sometimes overly harsh. It is important to remain confident and express your individual ideas in a best form which make you feel comfortable. Don't conform yourself to a man's idea of what a leader should look like. Female entrepreneurs also struggle to be taken seriously, Although the number of female entrepreneurs in w gradually increasing, the industry is still male dominated which may lead to them not wanting to acknowledge women in a leadership role. “As a female entrepreneur in a male-dominated industry, earning respect has been a struggle” according to Alison Gutterman.
In addition, Balancing business and family life can prove to be very difficult. Parent entrepreneurs have dual responsibilities to their businesses and to their families, it’s extremely hard to devote equal time to both. For example, a mother may need to work due to financial stability, she may not have the option to leave or even decrease working hours and therefore is paying less attention and time to her children. Although this is not her fault, the lack of attention to her children may lead to lack of love and responsibility as a mother. In this case although she is not able to decrease her working hours, she must ensure the time she gets to spend with her family is used to the best of its ability. Quality time with her children on a regular basis and working only within working hours will ensure a health balance for both sides. Lack of support and role models, there aren’t as many women as men in leadership positions, meaning there are less women to seek out to be role models, act as sounding boards, or create business deals with. Even though the number of female executives and business owners is increasing, it can still difficult to find fellow women entrepreneurs to connect with.
As a female it scary to think about going into business especially and it’s a male dominated. I may be a woman in business in the near future and there’s a strong possibility that I will be interested in starting a business or organisation. The male domination is an important factor however its motivating and inspirational to read and follow other female entrepreneurs and powerful to think if they can make it then so can I. Even though I know I will be a good entrepreneur there are many skills and competences in which I need to reflect and improve in, one of them being self-reflection. I must Allow downtime to reflect on the past and plan for the future. Always working only leads to burnout physically and emotionally. Also, rather than rushing to meet deadlines, I need to look back at my work to ensure all the correct decisions are made. By allowing time to reflect and downtime, it reduces stress and gives your mind at piece knowing your best work has been put forward. In addition, risk taking is a skill I need to personally develop in. Risk taking can lead to tremendous failures, but also stunning successes. During the summer work placement, I had many bright ideas which I believed would have helped during the project however I was not brave enough to put the ideas forward at the time. At the time I felt venerable, timid and intimidated in front of all the professionals at the beginning, this however changed with time as I got to know more people in the workplace. By taking risks and putting unique ideas forward it built my confidence and could have potentially improved the outcome of the project. In the future I will speak out and share ideas regardless of the setting. Another area for improvement is motivation and drive. During difficult tasks I often feel stressed which leads to a lack of motivation. Motivation plays a critical role in employee productivity, quality and speed of work. Demotivation often occurs when there is fear, the goals are not clear, there’s conflict or your burnout. To overcome this barrier, I will use methods to become stress free and in order to do this, I must keep everything organized, set rules and boundaries and stop setting unrealistic expectations. By doing this it will make me feel much more at ease and allow myself to reach my goals peacefully.
Overall, female entrepreneurs are strong, powerful and motivational. They set standards and inspire young individuals to embrace who they are and forget about the gender stereotypes engraved in the working industry. As a female I know I may face similar challenges in the working environment, balancing professional and private life may present itself as a challenge. I have a passion to work in an architect firm after finishing my studies, Architect firms are heavy male dominated however with the help of this essay and following female role models I know what to do and how to overcome barriers I will be faced with in the future.
