Encouraging the Growth of Women Owned Businesses

Writing in the Pittsburgh Gazette this week, Chatham College Professor Mary Riebe, who also directs the College's Center for Women's Entrepreneurship, highlights the relatively lower growth of women owned businesses in Pennsylvania and suggests some ways higher growth might be encouraged:

R... the ways women business owners think and talk about their businesses, view their leadership roles, and operate their businesses is markedly different than those of their male counterparts. These differences argue strongly for providing women with educational opportunities and support services that fit their particular needs.

We also know that while a greater number of younger rather than older women would like to start their own businesses, older women are more likely than younger women to actually do so. Providing young women with encouragement, training opportunities and role models during their degree-seeking education can help give younger women the confidence they need and to shorten the learning curve necessary to launch their own businesses.

Most importantly, like similar programs around the country, centers for women's entrepreneurship provide women business owners with opportunities for their own professional development and to serve as role models and mentors to others. Such centers can offer students innovative and women-centered educational experiences, such as certification and mentoring programs, and can connect them with successful women role models, experts and sponsors from the business community, faculty from across the institution, and governmental and non-profit support programs and networks.

Riebe also gives reasons why it is important for policy makers to pay attention to WBO growth rates:

As opportunities for women entrepreneurs increase, so, too, does the health and vibrancy of the community at large. With Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh lagging behind the national average for growth in women-owned firms, now is the time to support women business owners, and for Pennsylvania's women to take the next step forward in contributing to our state's economic success.

Can you apply these lessons to your state? Perhaps you can help spur policy makers to focus on these issues by writing a similar oped for publication in your local newspaper? Or, maybe Reibe's ideas for change suggest programs/approaches you could advocate for in your state.