This multi-country study (including Canada, Japan and four European countries) finds that women become entrepreneurs because they feel rejected by traditional workplaces. Martha Reavley, the study’s co-author and associate professor of management at the Odette School of Business at the University of Windsor in Ontario, notes that women “tire of hitting their heads on the ‘glass ceiling’ of having to continually ‘do more and be grateful for less.’”

Reavley adds that “workplace inequity and inequality, in all their subtle and overt forms, often push talented women to view going it alone as a very attractive alternative to corporate rejection.” She also discovered that women define success in business more broadly than men do, moving beyond profits to factors like number of years in business, number of clients and client feedback.

Expanding their networks, for instance, was seen as “a vital business behavior” by women across cultures, says Reavley. “In fact, being able to finally prove one’s worth is no small measure of success for women entrepreneurs.”

Successful Women Entrepreneurs: A Six-Country Analysis of Self-Reported Determinants of Success, Martha A. Reavley and Terri R. Lituchy, International Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship. 

This article was featured in the May 2011 issue of Working Mother Research Institute’s email newsletter, Working Mother Research Institute Essentials. To read additional stories from that issue, see the related content section above. To subscribe to Working Mother Research Institute Essentials, register on the newsletter page of this website.