• Personal motivation is a key driver for innovative behavior within both women-owned and men-owned firms, but women are found to be much more likely than men to innovate in order to address a social need they see in their communities or in the marketplace;
• There are more similarities than differences between women and men business owners in the operationalization of innovation within their firms, including trademarking, intellectual property protection, and investment in research and development, and in the orientation toward risk;
• Differences in risk tolerance are much more likely to be seen by development context than gender, with owners in the developing economies studied being much more cautious about risk;
• Access to finance is the most important barrier to innovation in all countries and among both women and men, but cultural constraints are an additional constraint – not only to innovation but to business growth in general – for women in Jordan and Uganda.

When it’s published, you’ll see that the report contains an extensive series of recommendations for policy and programmatic action, including:

• consideration of innovation-focused business exchange programs (regional, national or international) – as well as greater gender diversity in the composition of trade fairs and trade missions;
• establishment of targeted training and technical assistance to encourage innovation in social enterprises; and
• the creation of mentoring and role model efforts aimed at increasing innovation among women business owners.

The report also contains an extensive bibliography of related research and links to organizations and web sites related to women’s entrepreneurship and innovation, as well as summaries of each of the six country-specific reports.

To download and review the PowerPoint presentation I gave at the UNCTAD meeting, CLICK HERE. For more information about the full event agenda, CLICK HERE. And here’s a link to another interesting UNCTAD report, Applying a Gender Lens to Science, Technology and Innovation.

The survey was conducted online in October 2011 among small business owners who are registered on the Central Contractor Registry (CCR) and are either currently performing on a federal contract (prime or subcontractor) or who have done so within the past five years.

Other findings from this first of four reports drawn from the survey include:

• On average, active contractors invested $103,827 in time and money last year seeking federal contracts, up from $86,124 in 2009;
• Larger firms invest more seeking contracting opportunities, but so do firms owned by persons of color. Women invest somewhat less time and money seeking federal contracting opportunities than do their male counterparts;
• On average, small firms submitted an average of 4.4 bids before they won their very first federal contract – the lesson being, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again;
• Over the long term, experience pays off. Average bidding success rates – 38% overall – are significantly higher among firms with 10+ years of contracting experience compared to those firms with three years or less contracting experience.

The other three reports will focus on special trends among women and minority business owners, how strategies and outcomes change with level of procurement experience, and what lessons can be learned from firms that focus on subcontracting as a procurement strategy.

To learn more and download a copy of the report, read this Womenable-authored blogpost on openforum.com. Look for the next report from this survey in about a month; it will focus on the key findings among women and minority business owners.

The 59 economies are grouped into three categories (newly-named as of the 2008 GEM study and roughly equivalent to the previous low, moderate, and high income definitions): factor-driven, efficiency-driven, and innovation-driven. However, these categorizations do not seem to impact the gender analysis on many of the key findings:

• women are found to have smaller, less diverse professional networks than men,
• in all but one country (Ghana!), women are less likely than men to own businesses, and
• while internationalization increases with economic development, in all three types of economies women are less likely to trade internationally than men.

One intriguing new analysis contained in this report is a look at entrepreneurship gender gaps over time in the 16 countries that have been included in the GEM consortium for most of the past nine years. It was found that the gender gaps in entrepreneurship rates that had been quite wide in Argentina and Brazil as of 2002 have now virtually disappeared, while – conversely – in China where there had previously been no gender gap in entrepreneurship rates there is now a significant gap, with women now being much less likely than men to own a business.

For more information about the report, and to download a free copy of the 56-page report, CLICK HERE, and for a listing of all five GEM women’s reports published since 2004, CLICK HERE.

• the centenary of International Women’s Day
• the World Bank’s most recent World Development Report, focusing on gender and development, and
• a welcome upwelling of conversations about growth – not only bemoaning the lack of women at the top (so what else is new?) but finally taking aim at some of the structural barriers impeding their progress.

CLICK HERE to read the full list. Happy holidays and best wishes for a womenabling 2012!

(And, if you liked that e-newsletter and would like to subscribe to our quarterly e-news digest, please CLICK HERE to subscribe!)

• Words matter, changing our lexicon: Discussions and definitions of business growth are currently conducted using a very male-defined, testosterone-charged dictionary. When held up to this lens, women business owners often fall short and are described as “risk averse,” owning “lifestyle businesses,” or lacking the ambition to grow. Instead of thinking of women as falling short of a male-defined yardstick, let’s develop our own measures and descriptors, including thinking of women as more aware of risk as opposed to averse of it. Also, many women don’t want to grow just for growth’s sake, which causes some to see them as lacking in ambition. We need to talk more about growing businesses as a means toward a broader end of making an even bigger difference, impacting more lives and making the world a better place – that would be much more attractive too more women than a currency-based growth exhortation. And, importantly, “growth” is not a zero-sum game. It’s not either-or, and the term “high growth potential business” should not just be used when referring to multi-million dollar, equity-backed ventures. Yes, it’s true that only 2% of women-owned firms have crossed the million-dollar threshold, but only 5% of men-owned firms have as well. So we need to make thinking and growing bigger – not just huge – a more central part of the conversation.
• Policies with possibility, not proscription: Our public policies also do growth-oriented women – and men – business owners a disservice. Entrepreneurship support from many state and local governments – as well as the SBA – is the equivalent of primary school: they will only get a business owner so far along the educational process. While some may say that the government’s role should only be to provide a kick-start and that other players should pick up later in the journey – I would say that it is in a nation’s best interest – for international competitiveness and for sustainable economic growth – not to drop support when it’s needed the most. A case in point are the “golden handcuffs” of the SBA’s Women’s Business Center program. More about that later – and it’s covered in much more detail in my full remarks – but suffice it to say that the legislative marching orders for the program, and the tone that’s set in its management, do not support growth-oriented clients. This needs to change.
• Building an entrepreneurial road/canal system: I used one chart in my presentation (see slide #22) depicting the canal system around Birmingham England, birthplace of the Industrial Revolution – to make the point that it was only when this canal was built did the revolution truly take off. We need an analogous system for enterprise development: one that provides multiple pathways for an entrepreneur to start and navigate her journey; one that provides super highways as well as local roads, off ramps and on ramps, and scenic routes as well as straightaways. One size does not fit all in entrepreneurial development assistance, so there should be a variety of routes to business growth as well.

Of course, there’s a lot more than this to be done, and each of these ideas deserves a deeper discussion in and of themselves. However, I believe that many hands make light work and we’ve got to start somewhere – AND we have to invest in areas that will have a broad and lasting impact.

What do you think about the elements of this manifesto? Any others to add? Am I off the mark on anything? Let’s get a dialogue going about how we can all work together to embrace, empower, and legitimize women’s entrepreneurial leadership in ways that allow for growth “in a different voice” and through multiple pathways.

If you’re interested, the slides from the PowerPoint presentation accompanying my remarks is available on Womenable’s SlideShare page, and the archived webcast of my address will be posted on the FastTrac Global Women’s Summit web page very soon.

Three cheers for the triple bottom line power of entrepreneurial women – hip, hip, hooray!