This is an excerpt from an article originally published by Waterloo News.
A new study reveals that inexperienced entrepreneurial women in Canada still see more success when partnering with experienced men than when partnering with experienced women or going it alone.
That is the key finding from research coming out of the University of Waterloo and Statistics Canada based on an analysis of 183,358 unique Canadian business ventures from 2006 to 2017 and the impact of co-ownership by women and men.
According to study co-author Dr. Horatio M. Morgan, a professor at the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business at Waterloo, women-owned businesses typically underperform in terms of growth rate, profitability, survival rate, number of employees and productivity relative to businesses owned by men.
Research shows this is largely because women continue to face significant barriers, including negative gender-role stereotypes and difficulty gaining prior experience in executive positions at established companies, and challenges such as less access to financing.
It's one thing to encourage women to go into business. But if it doesn't turn out to be successful, it will not be a way for them to acquire experience and get better results quickly.
“It’s one thing to encourage women to go into business,” Morgan said, stressing the study focused on the impact of co-ownership and did not look at the role of actual mentorship. “But if it doesn’t turn out to be successful, it will not be a way for them to acquire experience and get better results quickly.”
Morgan emphasizes that the study does not suggest that all women need to partner with men to launch successful businesses.
He said the findings specifically apply to women without experience and that, in fact, the research shows a partnership between an experienced woman entrepreneur and an experienced man doesn’t yield productivity gains.
The study, Gender productivity gap: Does gender-equal ownership compensate for female entrepreneurs’ lack of prior industry experience?, appears in Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal.
Read the full story through Waterloo News.