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The following article was published in the Charleston Post & Courier's Business Major, a featured monthly column in the Business Review Section on August 9, 1999. Women's business gains still impressiveBy DOROTHY P. MOORE Special to the Post and Courier The numbers continue to astound and the gains continue to impress. In the past 12 years, women-owned businesses have doubled to more than 9.1 million, 38% of all firms in the United States. Employment in women-owned businesses has increased four-fold since 1987 to 27.5 million workers, more than all the Fortune 500 firms worldwide. Female entrepreneurs generate $3.6 trillion in sales yearly today. One in eight of these businesses (13%) is owned by a woman of color. As is the case with men-owned businesses, the largest number of women-owned firms, more than one-third of the total, is in the economy's service sector. The greatest recent growth has taken place in the fields of construction, wholesale trade and other areas previously dominated by males. One-sixth of these female-headed businesses are in manufacturing. The women entrepreneurs have impressive credentials. Those in business fewer than ten years are more likely than not to have college and advanced degrees and corporate professional or management experience. The changes in business ownership reflect what is going on elsewhere in the economy. In 1997, the most recent year for reliable statistics, labor force participation rates increased to an all-time high for white women (59.9 percent) and black women (64.0 percent) age 20 and over. Fifteen years ago, women held only one-third (33.6%) of the managerial and executive positions in America's companies and accounted for slightly less than half of the professional positions (48.5%). By 1995, women held nearly half of all managerial/executive positions (48.1%) and accounted for more than one-half (52.8%) of the people employed in professional occupations. Women now earn more than two thirds (69%) of the associate degrees and nearly half (48%) of the bachelor's degrees in business and marketing. Attention is being paid. For the first time in its history, the Harvard Business School is refocusing its case studies, the core of its MBA program, to feature women in senior management. The change was initiated by successful women like Marjorie Alfus, a former Kmart executive, and the Committee of 200, a New York based group made up of female entrepreneurs operating businesses doing more than $10 million per year and managers directing corporate operations totaling more than $50 million annually. The substantial donation of Marjorie Alfus, matched by the Committee of 200 with the total matched by Harvard, has made more than one million dollars available for the new case studies project. This is an impressive endeavor given that Harvard publishes 96 percent of the case studies around the world. Among the objectives of the Committee of 200 project is education for younger men and women in graduate business schools about leadership in the future. As Marjorie Alfus has put it, "I think a lot of women are smarter than men, more insightful." "Everything is a ball game to a guy. I tell women that you are going to have it much tougher than I did. Your competition is women." While the gains are impressive, the playing field is not yet level. Pay rates for women creep closer to the rates for men, but remain unequal. In negotiations for entry-level management positions women are likely to be offered less than men. Women are receiving only a little more than a third (37%) of the business and marketing MAs and slightly more than a quarter (27%) of the doctoral degrees. Women continue to hold fewer executive and other positions of high level authority, receive fewer executive benefits, and generally have less mobility, particularly in the international, expatriot positions. Although women account for 10 percent of all corporate officers, they are still a tiny fraction in the highest ranks of corporate leadership (2.4 percent) and barely represented in the most highly compensated officer positions in Fortune 500 companies (1.9 percent). A number of the old stereotypes also continue. In a number of settings, boys are still being educated to seek and hold power, girls are being told that leading is not feminine. Discrimination in the workplace is still being practiced. A women entrepreneur remembers her first job, in the early 90s, when "I found out the men who were at the same level made twice as much as I did. I asked why, and they said because they are married, they have families." She now heads a high tech, woman oriented internet company. Learning in many corporations lags behind the changes in society. Women managers who use the modern and more effective management style of consensus building, influence, teamwork and empowering followers continue to be misread by men who equate good management with hierarchy and an authoritarian style. This is why the interactions of the Committee of 200 and Harvard University are important. They reflect a fundamental change taking place across the business world. In the past, research tells us, men and women in corporate life operated in gender separated networks, primarily because women were not in positions of power. Breaking in to the networks that meant advancement in corporate life or financial or other support in entrepreneurship was seldom accomplished easily, and rewards for accomplishment were not always doled out equally. Now women of considerable accomplishment are beginning to make it to the top in both corporate life and small business. Many had found themselves excluded from the good-old-boy male organizational networks and experienced the difficulty of breaking barriers to get ahead. Their early support often came from other women. For Questions/Comments about this site, contact moored@citadel.edu. Site designed by Jackye Cocoros. |