The document summarizes a presentation on whether expanding women's self-employment is a good thing. It notes that while self-employment can provide flexibility, it often results in poorer financial returns than employment and lacks welfare benefits. Women's self-employment tends to be in crowded, lower-margin sectors and many enter it out of necessity rather than opportunity. Pursuing both domestic and work responsibilities constrains business performance. Expanding women's self-employment should not be assumed to be universally positive without considering structural barriers they face.

1. What Next for Women’s
Enterprise Policy?
March 12th 2020
#ERCWomenInEnterprise

2. Welcome & Introductions
 Dr Vicki Belt , ERC
 Professor Julia Rouse , Manchester Metropolitan University
#ERCWomenInEnterprise

3. Is time up for the hero male entrepreneur?
A review of enterprise discourse
and its effects
 Dr Sally Jones Manchester Metropolitan University
#ERCWomenInEnterprise

4. Is Time Up for the Hero
Male Entrepreneur?
• Dr Lorna Treanor, University of Nottingham
• Dr Sally Jones, Manchester Metropolitan University
• Professor Susan Marlow, University of Birmingham
State of the Art
Review
A Review of Enterprise Discourse and its Effects

5. The ‘typical’
entrepreneur

6. Evidence

7. Implications

8. Questions?

9. How does gender shape entrepreneurial
resources and practices?
 Professor Julia Rouse , Manchester Metropolitan University
#ERCWomenInEnterprise

10. How Does Gender Shape
Entrepreneurial Resources and
Practice?
Prof Julia Rouse – Manchester Metropolitan University

11. If entrepreneurship is combining resources to
create goods and services for profitable trade,
what are the gender differences in the ownership
and command of resources that creates the
startling gender gap in entrepreneurship?
How do these stubborn resource differences arise
from male privilege (rather than women’s
individual failures) and suggest policy failure?

12. Human Capital: the ‘know how’ needed to run
a particular business
Girls and women are doing better than boys/men in education, but:
• Occupational training is still highly sex segregated and male
tradesmen earn more than tradeswomen
• Higher education does not necessarily cause entrepreneurship
(wrong skills mix, subject/entrepreneurship stereotyping, job
competition)
• Particular action needed to include girls/women in digital skills

13. Financial capital
• Access to finance: start with less, struggle for 2nd/3rd stage finance
• Personal/family investment/borrowing: women more dependent
• Bank lending: historically women received less and got worse terms
even in equivalent businesses
• New evidence: algorithms and lenders’ post-recession risk aversion are more
favourable to women
• But other gender relations mean many women-led businesses are not in high
potential sectors (so women’s ‘risk aversion’ is rational)
• Angel investment and venture capital: gender discrimination
• Women more dependent on a close relationship to the lender and to being
capable in tech to overcome stereotype bias… so on overcoming other
gendered barriers before they can impress funders!

14. Social Capital: a person’s ability to extract resources
from people they know or able to get to know
• Women have more close networks
• Lower access to distant/specialist networks and particularly high-growth networks
• BAME women face particular exclusion
• Gender differences arise from:
• Men’s behaviour; masculine network structures; feminine norms and roles
• Women-only networks
• Promote bonding
• Fail to supply bridging capital & protect mainstream networks from challenge
• Enterprise ecosystems exist to enable connections between stakeholders
• Widespread failure to support women to form better networks
• Including failure to create rich team-based enterprises

15. Labour Capital: capacity to draw on labour (own and
others) to apply resources to trading goods & services
Time and space of entrepreneur practice limited by feminised domestic and care
responsibilities
• Particularly in motherhood but also possibly in relation to elder and disability care
• Hopes for ‘work-life balance’ often only realised by working non-stop
• Male partners give limited free labour to women-led businesses
• Working from home makes women’s entrepreneurial labour constantly up for
negotiation
Failure in Enterprise Ecosystems
• No public support to free women from domestic work
• Limited understanding of how child and elder care provision serves women business
owners
• Low recognition of domestic/care responsibility barriers in enterprise programmes
• Poor understanding of how enterprise services should synchronise with women’s
time/space restrictions to increase access

16. What do we know about ethnic & migrant
women entrepreneurs?
 Professor Haya Al Dajani (MBS College, Saudi Arabia)
 Professor Natalia Vershinina (Audencia University, France)
#ERCWomenInEnterprise

17. What Do We Know About Ethnic and Migrant
Women Entrepreneurs? A Review of Evidence
Haya Al-Dajani (Mohammad Bin Salman College for Business and Entrepreneurship)
Natalia Vershinina (Audencia Business School)
Maria Villares-Varela (University of Southampton)
March 12, 2020

18. Introduction
• BAME enterprises contribute approximately £25-£32
billion per annum to the UK economy
• One in seven new start-ups are initiated by BAME and
migrants in the UK
• BAME and migrant women own and lead
approximately 14 per cent of women led ventures in
the UK
• We assume that BAME and migrant entrepreneurs are
a homogenous group of men and women who face
similar and gender neutral constraints and enablers
for entrepreneurial activity. The reality is different
………….

19. Key Issues
• Enterprise as an Unsafe Safety
• Discrimination and Resource Constraints
• The Ethnic and Migrant Family Business
Shield

20. Recommendations
• Tailored Business Support
• Mentoring

21. Question & Comments

22. Is expanding women’s self-employment
a good thing?
 Dr Angela Martinez-Dy (Loughborough University)
#ERCWomenInEnterprise

23. IS EXPANDING WOMEN’S SELF-EMPLOYMENT
A GOOD THING? A STATE OF THE ART REVIEW
DR ANGELA MARTINEZ DY (LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY LONDON), DR DILANI JAYAWARNA (UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL), PROFESSOR
SUSAN MARLOW (UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM). 12 MARCH 2020

24. PRESENTATION SUMMARY
Academic, policy and popular discourse on the topic adopt the generic presumption that entrepreneurship is a desirable
career choice for women and that society will benefit if more women become entrepreneurs
Self-employment (SE) can create new time pressures and generate poorer returns than employment, without the protection of
welfare benefits such as paid ante-natal support, extended paid maternity leave, and subsidised childcare
The constrained performance of many women-owned firms is not necessarily due to women’s entrepreneurial propensity or
competency, but broad based socio-economic structural inequality
While women should be encouraged and enabled to enact their entrepreneurial propensity, and many do create successful
and sustainable ventures, the evidence indicates that the ‘more is better’ thesis is the wrong approach.

25. SELF-EMPLOYMENT SINCE THE CRISIS
2008 2015 2019
Since 2010, self-employment has
accounted for around a third of
employment growth (Tatomir, 2015)
– part-time in particular (Wales and
Agyiri, 2016)
From 2008-2015, women
represented 58% (377,000) of
650,000 new entrants to part
time self employment (Watson
and Pearson, 2016)
Self-employment by women of colour is
disproportionally increasing (Jayawarna et
al., 2019).
Black and Asian women were particularly
affected by austerity policies reducing
employment opportunities, especially
public sector (Neitzert and Stephenson,
2016; Emejulu and Bassel, 2015)

26. STRUCTURAL TRENDS PROMPT INCREASE IN WOMEN’S SE
 Despite extensive policy and support directives to expand women’s share of self employment in
the UK (Ahl and Marlow, 2019), it was relatively stable from the 1990s until 2010
 Structural trends have prompted this expansion (McAdam, 2013)
 job losses caused by austerity
 increase in women’s retirement age (Watson and Pearson, 2016)
 Universal Credit Welfare reforms (Rabindrakumar, 2014)
 More female single parents entering precarious necessity SE (Rabindrakumar, 2014)
 Single mothers 25% more likely to become self-employed than single fathers (Jayawarna et al., 2019)
 Zero-hours and gig economy SE increasing in traditionally female dominated sectors and those
that prior to austerity were under the remit of the public sector, including caring and cleaning
(Citizens Advice, 2015; Watson and Pearson, 2016).

27. CHARACTERISTICS OF SE WOMEN AND THEIR FIRMS
Women are more likely to:
 enter SE with higher levels of human capital, at a later age than men
 utilise entrepreneurial activity as a stop-gap between employment disrupted by caring demands or
discrimination (Jayawarna et al., 2019)
 have younger firms with a shorter tenure
Firms owned by women tend to be:
 concentrated in crowded, lower-margin ‘feminised’ sectors (health, caring, community and social
activities)
 micro and home based ventures (FSB, 2016)
 representing less than 25% of business in the five most productive sectors
 81% have fewer than five employees (Rose, 2019)
Need to challenge ‘deficit model’
(Ahl and Marlow, 2012)

28. PECUNIARY AND NON-PECUNIARY BENEFITS
Financial Returns
 When weighted with hours of work invested, financial returns to SE are lower than those to employment
 Gender exacerbates this differential, with self-employed women experiencing notable income penalties
 particularly for those working part-time from home (Yuen et al., 2018)
Flexibility and ‘Greedy Institutions’
 Families and business ventures are ‘greedy institutions’ (Lin and Burgard, 2018).
 The pursuit of flexibility, often presented as key non-pecuniary benefit of SE, demands a notable trade off in terms of
income and time.
 Also evident for part-time employment – but this offers more stability and access to benefits (Du Rivage, 2018)
 Prioritising domestic demands compromises returns from enterprise, whilst constraining growth intentions and capability
(Jayawarna et al., 2014; 2019)
 Prioritising the firm generates work-life conflict and undermines the flexibility rationale for SE (McGowan et al., 2012).

29. WELFARE BENEFIT PROVISION
 Statutory employment rights not available to self-employed: national minimum wage, sick pay,
holiday pay, enhanced maternity benefits and supported flexible working options (Klyver et al,
2013).
 The self-employed do not have the same access to welfare benefits, and few invest in adequate
insurance to cover issues such as loss of earnings (Hughes, 2017)
 In France, recent welfare policy changes aligning funded maternity leave, unemployment
allocations and pension contributions to self-employed with those of employed workers (Hart, et
al., 2018) have led to a doubling of total entrepreneurship rates between 2017-2018
 Women are over-represented in the poorest groups in society whether as single parents or in
older age so, have a higher dependency on welfare benefits; their lack is more detrimental to
them.
 Inflexibility of benefit system may encourage informal enterprise (MacInnes et al., 2014)

30. IMPLICATIONS AND KEY MESSAGES
The policy effort to encourage more women to enter self employment assuming that
such expansion is good for women and the economy should be the subject of critical
reflection.
Evidence presented here contests the fundamental assumption that encouraging more
women into SE is universally positive for them and the economy.
Structural constraints mean that fewer women owned firms realise sustainable returns
through growth, whilst claims of flexibility are compromised by balancing time against
performance (Yousafzai, 2018).
The marketing of SE to women as a flexible option which enables greater self-
actualisation should be balanced with a ‘reality check’ regarding the poor prospects for
those entering crowded volatile sectors, operating part-time, or who are sole household
earners
Policies allocating funding to the welfare of the self-employed have been seen to
increase total SE rates.

31. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION – QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS?
Ahl, H., & Marlow, S. (2019). Exploring the false promise of entrepreneurship through a postfeminist critique, Human Relations, https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726719848480
Anyadike-Danes, M., Hart, M., & Du, J. (2015), Firm dynamics and job creation in the United Kingdom: 1998–2013.International Small Business Journal,33(1), 12-27.
Citizens Advice (2015) Neither one thing nor the other: how reducing bogus self-employment could benefit workers, business and the Exchequer. Available at:
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/Global/CitizensAdvice/Work Publications/Neither one thing nor the other.pdf.
DuRivage, V. L. (2018). New policies for the part-time and contingent workforce. London, Routledge
Emejulu, A. and Bassel, L. (2015) ‘Minority women, austerity and activism’, Race and Class, 57(2), 86–95.
Federation of Small Businesses (2016) Women in Enterprise: The Untapped Potential. Available at: https://www.fsb.org.uk/docs/default-source/fsb-org-uk/fsb-women-in-enterprise-the-
untapped-potentialfebc2bbb4fa86562a286ff0000dc48fe.pdf?sfvrsn=0.
Hart, M., Bonner, K. and Heery, L. (2018) Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2018 Monitoring Report. Available at: https://www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/GEM-2018-
Report_final.pdf.
Hughes, C. (2017), The Hidden Cost of Insurance for the Self-Employed: https://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/self-employment-cost-holiday-pay-sick-leave-benefits-
a8019171.html
Jayawarna, D., Martinez Dy, A. and Marlow, S. (2019) ‘Women’s Entrepreneurship – Self Actualisation or Self Harm?’, in 39th Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference.
Wellesley, MA, USA.
Joona, P.A. (2018) How does motherhood affect self-employment performance? Small Business Economics. 50, 29-54
Klyver, K., Nielsen, S. L., & Evald, M. R. (2013). Women's self-employment: An act of institutional (dis) integration? A multilevel, cross-country study. Journal of Business Venturing, 28(4), 474-
488.
Lin, K. Y., & Burgard, S. A. (2018). Working, parenting and work-home spillover: Gender differences in the work-home interface across the life course. Advances in life course research, 35, 24-
36
MacInnes, T., Bushe, S., Tinson, A., Born, T. B., & Aldridge, H. (2014). Monitoring poverty and social exclusion 2014. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
McGowan, P., Redeker, C. L., Cooper, S. Y. et al. (2012). Female entrepreneurship and the management of business and domestic roles:. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 24(1-2),
53-72.
Neitzert, E. and Stephenson, M.-A. (2016) New research shows that poverty, ethnicity and gender magnify the impact of austerity on BME women, Womens Budget Group. Available at:
https://wbg.org.uk/news/new-research-shows-poverty-ethnicity-gender-magnify-impact-austerity-bme-women/%0Ahttp://files/1727/new-research-shows-poverty-ethnicity-gender-magnify-
impact-austerity-bme-women.html.
Rabindrakumar, S. (2014) Paying the price: The long road to recovery. Available at: http://www.barrowcadbury.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/payingtheprice_gingerbread_fullreport.pdf.
Rose, A. (2019) The Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship. Available at:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/784324/RoseReview_Digital_FINAL.PDF.
Stumbitz, B., Lewis, S., & Rouse, J. (2018). Maternity management in SMEs: a transdisciplinary review and research agenda. International Journal of Management Reviews, 20(2), 500-522.
Tatomir, S. (2015) Self-employment: what can we learn from recent developments? Available at: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2015/self-employment-
what-can-we-learn-from-recent-developments.pdf?la=en&hash=96C1AEA6273E02BB85B671DF95519E17BE87A3E9.
Wales, P. and Agyiri, A. (2016) Trends in self-employment in the UK: 2001 to 2015, Office for National Statistics. Available at:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/trendsinselfemploymentintheuk/2001to2015.
Watson, E. and Pearson, R. (2016) Here to Stay: Women’s self-employment in a (post) austerity era, Women’s Budget Group. Available at: https://wbg.org.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2015/02/Here_to_stay_selfemployment_Briefing_Mar16.pdf.
Yousafzai, S., Fayolle, A., Lindgreen, A., Henry, C., Saeed, S., & Sheikh, S. (Eds.). (2018). Women Entrepreneurs and the Myth of ‘Underperformance’: A New Look at Women’s
Entrepreneurship Research. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Yuen,W., Sidhu, S., Vassilev,G., et al. (2018). Trends in self-employment in the UK. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/Admin/Downloads/Trends%20in%20self-
employment%20in%20the%20UK.pdf

32. Coffee Break
#ERCWomenInEnterprise

33. A review of assumptions underpinning
women’s enterprise policy initiatives
 Professor Julia Rouse (Manchester Metropolitan University)
 Professor Kiran Trehan (University of York)
#ERCWomenInEnterprise

34. A Review of Assumptions
Underlying Women’s
Enterprise Policy
Prof Julia Rouse – Manchester Metropolitan University
Prof Kiran Trehan – University of York

35. Makeover Approaches: Unleashing Women’s
Entrepreneurial Action?
• Confidence building
• Mentoring
• Role models
• Specialist:
• Networks
• Business support
• Financial advice

36. Critique of the Makeover Approach
1. Camouflages, and fails to address, the social conditions that create
barriers to new venture creation and development for many
women
2. Situates women as ‘in detriment’ compared to men and devalues
feminine trading

37. Where are BAME and migrant women in women’s
enterprise policy?
• Little proper investment to make mainstream enterprise ecosystems
fit for purpose in supporting BAME or migrant women with multiple
barriers to enterprise or for specialist support
• Unrealistic ideas in enterprise programmes and welfare system about
how migrant women can become economically active / independent
via enterprise

38. Makeover Approach: A Global Policy Error

39. What is the Real Policy Problem?
(Growth in) Low Quality Self-
Employment
Rapid growth since recession may
reflect a downturn in good work
under austerity
Hopes for work-life balance are often
unrealised (and are a short-term
tactic for coping with exclusion from
employment)
FT employed women earn 76% more
than FT self-employed women
Social Barriers
Occupational segregation: barriers to doing
‘men’s work’ and undervaluing of ‘women’s
work’
Unfair investment and networks
Unfair domestic labour and inadequate
access to child/elder care
Intersecting injustices for BAME women

40. Recommendation: Invest in Diverse Enterprise
Ecosystems
If…
Ecosystems are not contexts that
already exist but multilateral
interdependencies intentionally
created to bring about a value
proposition (Adner, 2018)
Then…
1. Curate much broader
enterprise ecosystems whose
value proposition is to tackle
social barriers, giving women
(i) better resources, and fairer
roles, from which to create
businesses, and (ii) markets
that value their goods and
services fairly.
2. Generate ‘Good Work’ for all
women to create an
opportunity cost to enterprise
that will regulate the quality
of self-employment.

41. The Real Policy Challenges: Good Work &
Enterprise Ecosystems With Broader Conceptions
of What Forms ‘Productivity’

42.  Maria Wishart, ERC, Warwick Business School
Supporting disadvantaged
entrepreneurs to build better
business resilience
#ERCWomenInEnterprise

43. Background
• SMEs account for 99% of businesses, 68% of jobs and 58% of value-
added in the European Union (EU, 2017)
• Some groups including females, ethnic minority groups, migrants, the
disabled, and those with low educational attainment are under-
represented in entrepreneurship: more precarious businesses, lower
turnover and survival rates and higher dependent self-employment
& false self-employment (OECD, 2017)
• Entrepreneurship often characterised as an enabler for
disadvantaged individuals in accessing employment, or as a tool to
tackle discrimination and increase social inclusion (e.g., Alvord et al,
2004; De Clercq and Honig, 2011; Fairlie, 2005)

44. Under-represented groups:
barriers to entrepreneurship
Common barriers
• Inability to access to finance (Bruder et al, 2011; Manolova et al,
2010)
• Lack of human capital (Drakopoulou Dodd, 2015; Huarng et al, 2012)
• Lack of social capital (Martin et al, 2015; Mendy and Hack-Polay,
2015)
• Discrimination/bias (Ram & Jones, 2008; Shinnar et al, 2018)
Specific barriers
• Unfamiliarity with culture & institutional set-up (OECD, 2017)
• Benefits trap (Boylan and Burchardt, 2002)
• Family circumstances (Manolova et al, 2012; Thompson et al, 2009)
• Low educational attainment (Fairlie, 2005)

45. Under-represented groups: resilience
challenges
• Ethnic-led firms and female-led firms run their businesses
differently from male and non ethnic led firms:
– Tend to have different goals
– Less likely to seek external advice for their businesses
– Tend to consult different kinds of external advice than their
counterparts
– Anticipate and experience crises differently: worry more
about future crises but struggle to identify the most potent
threats to their businesses
(ERC, 2019)

46. Anticipating & planning for adversity
Ambition and business objectives. Female vs male
43%
70%
63%
65%
47%
63%
44%
51%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Build a national business
Keep my business the same
Contribute to local community
Increase environmental benefits
Male Female
London data, ERC (2019)

47. Anticipating & planning for adversity
Ambition and business objectives. Ethnic vs non-ethnic
39%
68%
65%
64%
48%
66%
48%
55%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Build a national business
Keep my business the same
Contribute to local community
Increase environmental benefits
Non ethnic Ethnic
London data, ERC (2019)

48. Anticipating & planning for adversity
Perceived threats
45%
43%
57%
54%
35%
27%
48%
41%
45%
39%
56%
49%
31%
26%
46%
41%
Inc comp
New Comp
Costs
Regulations
Male Female Non ethnic Ethnic
London data, ERC (2019)

49. Anticipating & planning for adversity
Sources of advice. Female vs male
76%
39%
54%
25%
45%
57%
48%
83%
43%
51%
21%
45%
67%
44%
Accountant
Network
Friend
LA
Govt
Legal
Mentor
Male Female
London data, ERC (2019)

50. Anticipating & planning for adversity
Sources of advice. Ethnic vs non-ethnic
71%
38%
55%
28%
41%
55%
51%
83%
42%
52%
21%
47%
65%
44%
Accountant
Network
Friend
LA
Govt
Legal
Mentor
Non ethnic Ethnic
London data, ERC (2019)

51. Implications
• Focus on sources and effects of multiple disadvantage to
elucidate the challenges underrepresented groups face.
• Explore how the same barrier may be experienced by
different groups to help with the design of interventions.
• Develop interventions to help underrepresented
entrepreneurs to anticipate threats and plan for future
crisis to help them to improve their resilience.

52.  Christine Atkinson (University of South Wales) in conversation
with Professor Kiran Trehan (University of York)
A hopeful direction? New women’s
enterprise policy in Wales
#ERCWomenInEnterprise

53. “A hopeful direction? New women’s enterprise policy in
Wales”
Christine Atkinson, Head of Centre for Enterprise and Women’s Entrepreneurship Hub
and Celia Netana, Research Assistant, University of South Wales
‘What Next for Women’s Enterprise Policy?’
12 March 2020, WBS London, The Shard, London

54. Background – Continued under representation of
women in entrepreneurship and Policy Background
Welsh Government, 2019: 7-8
Youth
Entrepreneurship
Strategy (YES)
2015-2020
(originally
launched 2004)

55. Underpinning research – Barriers reported via Poll of female entrepreneurs
Barriers/challengesexperienced by female entrepreneurs– 88 respondents n=88 %
1 Work/life balance issues 66 75
2 Lack of relevant contacts 61 69
3 Lack of self confidence [joint 3rd place] 60 68
3 Fear of failure [joint 3rd place] 60 68
4 Difficulty in accessing finance 57 64
5 Lack of belief in own business skills 55 62
6 Lack of knowledge/experience 53 60
7 Difficulty in establishing credibility/being taken seriously 50 56
8 Difficulty in accessing growth funding 41 46
9 Child or elder care 39 44
10 Gender stereotyping [joint 10th place] 34 38
10 Lack of access to business angels [joint 10th place] 34 38
11 Fear of success 33 37
12 Gender discrimination 29 32
13 Lack of access to venture capital funding 27 30
From most commonly
to least commonly
reported; some
indicated more than
one barrier

56. Summary of key findings
1. Both female entrepreneurs and business support organisations identified similar
practical, social and internal challenges (egs care of children, worklife balance, lack
of confidence, difficulty (or fear) of not being able to establish credibility/be taken
seriously)
2. There were divergent views regarding gender, cultural and institutional barriers (egs
difficulty in accessing finance, gender stereotyping and gender discrimination).
3. Some challenges increase over time/at different stages of business eg paradox of
search for ‘flexibility’ as a motivation but the reality of ‘worklife balance’ issues
4. There was a consensus among female entrepreneurs that future business support
needed to be person-centred, gender aware, underpinned by an appreciation or
understanding of intersectionality and a call for greater use of experienced
entrepreneurs within business support/as business mentors

57. ‘So what?’
Publication of “Supporting Entrepreneurial Women in Wales: An
Approach for Wales” (Welsh Government, 2019)
10 recommendations to help tackle inequality and ensure the needs
of entrepreneurial women in Wales are met
1 - Improve engagement with potential women entrepreneurs to better understand
their individual barriers that prevents participation in business start-up activity
2 - Further tailor business support services to ensure they are gender aware and
focussed to meet the specific needs of women entrepreneurs, recognising their
different characteristics, culture and circumstances
3 - Increase the availability of women business advisors and mentors and make
women aware of the choice of service they have
4 - Improve information on the availability of finance for women entrepreneurs, and
ensure there are no unnecessary restrictions to the awarding of finance
5 - Recognise and promote the success of women entrepreneurs as role models to
others

58. 6 - Improve access to business support information sources and encourage
networking between women entrepreneurs and the business community
7 - Develop a good practice guide and encourage business support organisations to
adopt this
8 - Provide tailored, practical pre-start business support that encourages and
supports women to build their self-confidence
9 - Continue to engage with young women to promote and develop
entrepreneurial attitudes, with particular emphasis on the education system
10 - Ensure that business awards in Wales actively encourage both recognition of
women entrepreneurs and ensure that there is a gender balanced panel and
judging criteria
Thank you!

59. Final Comments and
Q & A
#ERCWomenInEnterprise

60. Thank you &
Networking Lunch
#ERCWomenInEnterprise
For further details please visit :
www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk
@ERC_Uk
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