Women's road to business success in the era of equal opportunities policy
Abstract
In the era of equal opportunities policy, the road to business success is still more time-consuming and labour-intensive for women than it is for men. Numerous studies indicate that women are faced with specific requirements concerning the enhancement of their role in management. However, despite the existing procedural and legal solutions, women's access to leadership positions is still difficult. Analysing the situation in Poland, a change in the situation of women in the labour market after the accession to the European Union is practically imperceptible or insignificant, despite such strongly emphasised equal opportunities policy, especially in projects co-financed by the Structural Funds. The paper aims to answer the following questions: (1) what factors hinder women's entrepreneurial activity?, and (2) does the phenomenon of discrimination against women in the labour market still exist despite the strongly emphasised, especially after 2004, principle of equal opportunities? The provision of answers to thus formulated questions was preceded by an analysis of secondary sources and a CAWI study conducted on a sample of 353 randomly selected companies from Lodz representing various sectors. The respondents in the study were women-entrepreneurs or women occupying managerial/executive positions.
References
Avolio Alecchi, B.E., & Radović-Marković, M. (2012). Women and Entrepreneurship: Female Durability, Persistence and Intuition at Work. London: Routledge.
Balcerzak-Paradowska, B., Bednarski, M., Głogosz D. et al. (2011). Przedsiębiorczość kobiet w Polsce. Warszawa: PARP.
Beltran, M.E., & Ursa, Y. (2006). Benchmarking Analysis on Women Entrepreneurs and Workers in ICT Industry. WISE- Benchmarking Analysis Report. WISE project, co-financed by the Leonardo da Vinci-Programme of the European Commission.
Fransson, B. (2011). Women’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Country Report, Sweden. Stockholm: Power Lake AB.
Jennings, J.E., & Brush, C.G. (2013). Research on Women Entrepreneurs: Challenges to (and from) the Broader Entrepreneurship Literature?, The Academy of Management Annals, 7(1), 661–713.
Kelley, D.J., Brush, C.G., Greene, P.G., & Litovsky, Y. (2012). Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2012 Women’s Report. London: Global Entrepreneurship Research Association.
Kupczyk, T. (2009). Kobiety w zarządzaniu i czynniki ich sukcesów. Wrocław: Wyższa Szkoła Handlowa.
Wube, M.C. (2010). Factors Affecting the Performance of Women in Micro and Small Enterprises (the case of Dessie Town). Bahir Dar: Bahir Dar University.
Uniwersytet Łódźki Poland
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
1. The author agrees to publish his article free of charge in the journal "International Entrepreneurship Review" (IER) in the language of the above publication (English). The editorial staff reserves the right to shorten texts and to change titles.
2. The journal allows the authors to keep their copyrights (the copyright) in accordance with the license: Creative Commons CC-BY-ND 4.0.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) only the final version of the article, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access). We advise to use any of the following research society portals:
- ResearchGate
- SSRN
- Academia.edu
- Selected Works
- Academic Search
