Strategic Direction

How male and female bosses learn to manage: Gender differences are important, but can also be
misleading

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, (2015),"How male and female bosses learn to manage", Strategic Direction, Vol. 31 Iss 10 pp. 33 - 35
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How male and female bosses learn to

manage
Gender differences are important, but can also be misleading

Downloaded by UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA PAHANG At 01:15 23 October 2015 (PT)

A powerful elite
A report by the Department of Trade and Industry in 2005 indicated that female
entrepreneurs represent 6.7 per cent of the UK population and 14 per cent of all
businesses.
They make an annual contribution of 50-70 billion to the gross value added to the UK
economy each year. Taken together, these statistics paint a picture of women who are more
than holding their own when compared with male counterparts.
Nevertheless, the culture surrounding entrepreneurship is inherently masculine and to
some 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 that
females are a limited group in terms of entrepreneurial activity or even of the potential to
become entrepreneurial. It might also be added that when female entrepreneurs are being
praised in the media, an emphasis is often placed on the male characteristics that allegedly
enabled to get where they are today!
Therefore, this study which is exploratory in nature aims to examine the differences in the
learning experiences between men and women in the business environment. Specifically,
the study investigates how critical events affect the learning behavior of entrepreneurs and
whether the critical events are likely to be different between male and female
entrepreneurs.

Ten case studies

The study also aims to investigate what entrepreneurs learn, how they learn, who they learn
from and what prompted such learning. It presents the results from ten case study firms to
demonstrate different types of learning experience between male and female small
business owners.
Many issues surrounding entrepreneurial learning are of course common to both men and
women, and some of these have been explored in previous studies. Such learning will
depend on common issues such as trial and error, learning from others, problem solving
and feedback from customers. Much will depend, too, on the owner-managers ability and
willingness to change their existing mindset from reflection and analysis of critical events
and 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 and
manufacturing. 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

questioning. Here, participants reflected on their stories regarding the main influences/
motives for starting a business, their experiences in running the enterprise. In later
interviews, themes that had emerged earlier were explored in more depth; data analysis
was 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 how
they had learned about acquiring the confidence to do what needs to be done to run the
business.
One woman said: Success, for me, doesnt necessarily mean doing something differently,
but having confidence in what I am doing [. . .] and confidence comes when Im
successfully doing things the way I want to do them.
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Other female entrepreneurs were clearly thinking along the same lines. An owner-manager
in the catering industry, who also mentioned lack of confidence, provided evidence of a
business plan she prepared herself after some sessions with a business adviser. The
findings therefore suggest that entrepreneurial learning is triggered by critical events and
that 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 learn
from others. With men, there was a greater emphasis on learning from the likes of
accountants, solicitors and business advisors. One male owner-manager talked of how in
the past four years he has learned human resources management from his business
advisor, and financial management and cash flow management from his accountant. Within
a business services firm, another man learned some element of financial control from his
bank manager to run a flexible bank overdraft with credit card facilities. The male
owner-managers in three more enterprises also learned from a wide circle of stakeholders
including accountants, customers and employees.

Having the knowledge

By contrast, the female owner-manager of a textile manufacturing firm indicated that she
did not use any external assistance to develop their funding application or in any other area
of management and entrepreneurship. She stressed during the first interview that she had
sufficient knowledge of entrepreneurship generally. Therefore, she did not see what she
could learn from anybody or why she should seek external assistance whether from
enterprise agencies, accountants, bank managers or solicitors. It does appear that, overall,
female entrepreneurs are less likely to engage with such specialists and are therefore more
likely to learn from a narrow group of people (families, for example) than their male
counterparts.
An important part of the findings of this study is that, on some issues, the difference is not
apparent, and, given the small sample size, definitive conclusions cannot be made. It is
clear, however, that entrepreneurship is a learning process based on the willingness and
ability of the owner-managers to learn from their close-knit network, whether involving
similar situations to those encountered in the past or entirely new scenarios.
Women are also more comfortable with so called single-loop learning which focuses on
learning via routines and immediate tasks and can help to boost confidence. This study
also puts a greater emphasis on satisfaction and confidence in everyday work than the
more traditionally researched factors such as profit, size and growth.

PAGE 34 STRATEGIC DIRECTION

VOL. 31 NO. 10 2015

Comment
Keywords:
Gender,
Sex,
Small firms,
Entrepreneurial learning

This review is based on Entrepreneurial learning: gender differences, by Ekanem (2015).

Theres some food for thought here for people on gender issues in management. The
observation about women learning to do what needs to be done to run the business is
perhaps a euphemism. While women might have a less naturally aggressive approach,
they can learn it if needs be.

Reference

Downloaded by UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA PAHANG At 01:15 23 October 2015 (PT)

Ekanem, I. (2015), Entrepreneurial learning: gender differences, International Journal of

Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 557-577.

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