Diversity in Entrepreneurship

1
Diversity in Entrepreneurship

• Regional Policy What Works?
• 16-17 November 2004,
• Durham
• Monder Ram, De Montfort university
• Sara Carter, Strathclyde University

2
Aims

• Highlight academic and policy assumptions
  relating to women and ethnic minority owned
  businesses
• Assess the implications of these assumptions,
  particularly in relation to policy initiatives
  directed at women and ethnic minorities in
  business
• Highlight issues for discussion

3
Current Position

• Women
• Under-represented in self-employment and business
  ownership
• Raft of policies designed to increase rates of
  participation
• Q1 1992 899,000 s/e women (7 of economically
  active women, 26 of self-employed population)
• Q1 2004 962,000 s/e women (7 of economically
  active women, 26 of self-employed population)
• Evidence of relatively low in-flows into and
  relatively high (and unexplored) out-flows from
  self-employment
• Expansion of business and personal services
  sectors
• Reproduction of labour market inequalities in
  self-employment

4
Current Position

• Ethnic minorities
• Divergent experiences of ethnic groups
• Upward mobility and social exclusion
• Erosion of traditional economic niches (e.g.
  clothing, retail)

5
Academic Discourses

• Academic discourse on entrepreneurship is narrow,
  gendered and racialized
• Stereotypical views of entrepreneurs being white,
  male and middle-class
• View derived from Schumpeterian heroic
  perspectives, reinforced by personality and trait
  research
• Dualism between few high growth gazelles and
  majority of lifestyle trundlers
• Academic schism between entrepreneurship domain
  and mom and pop demographers

6
Policy Discourses

• Open for all?
• Cure-all?
• Explicitly linked to measures tackling social
  exclusion, the promotion of competitiveness and
  encouragement of innovation

7
Policy Manifestations

• Women
• Obsession with raising the numbers
• Remedial and low-level support
• Neglect of structural constraints
• Ethnic Minorities
• Conflated with under-represented groups
• Neglect of changing nature of ethnic minority
  entrepreneurship
• Tendency towards ethnic matching approaches

8
Issues for Discussion

• Who benefits?
• What is the most appropriate means of recognizing
  gender and ethnicity in enterprise policy?
• How do we build context (spatial, sectoral,
  institutional and social) into policy design and
  interventions?