The Validation of the Women Workplace Culture - Essay Example

?Women Entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom Women have evolved so much since the last century. Generally, from the highly traditional role of homemakers, they have been emancipated by the two world wars as they were called upon to work outside the home in lieu of the multitude of men sent off to fight the war. As they took on some of the men’s jobs, discrimination against them was commonplace. They were not deemed as clever or as physically strong as their male counterparts, and as a result, were often harassed, by their bosses and trade unionists. They therefore, had to fight to be taken seriously. They needed to disprove men’s suspicions that they could be efficient workers. Men were surprised at the skills women were learning at such a fast rate that they were usually at a loss as to what orders to give them. Women were initially trained to the same standard as men, but employers eventually didn’t want to hire fully trained women because they received better pay, which upset the trained male workers, causing friction in the workplace. The government tried to remedy this problem by reducing the length of training courses for women, which inevitably resulted in the occurrence of work-based accidents among women. The government also entered into the ‘relaxation agreements’ with trade unionists, which stated that women could undertake men’s jobs as long as they were regarded as temporary and were paid the same as men. The predominantly male trade unions, therefore, initially looked like they truly wanted equal pay and equality for women, but in reality, they were merely trying to protect the traditional working rights of men. Yet, when faced with discrimination, the majority of women continued to work hard to gain their superiors’ respect and often carried out their jobs to a higher standard than their male equivalents (Trueman, 2000). The new millennium has ushered overwhelming changes that call for the empowerment of men and women alike to contribute to globalization efforts. Women, in particular, have seen the change in their roles more dramatically than in the past centuries. The most salient change is their joining the workforce and even climbing up the hierarchy to positions in organizations that were previously reserved for men. However, sexual stereotypes passed on from generation to generation seem to dictate that women have no place in the workforce and their rightful place is at home, caring for their family. Thus, some work places may not be too accepting of the empowerment of women in employment and may strip them of their dignity to make them realize that they do not belong there. In the United Kingdom, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (amended 1986 and in the Employment Act 1989) makes it unlawful to discriminate in terms of gender who is offered the job; opportunities for promotion, transfer and training. (Equal Opportunities Management Guidelines, 2006). The Gender Equality Duty, which is included in the new law as of April 2007, requires public entities to remove sex discrimination and facilitate equality in all their services, policies, and employment and recruitment practices (Thompsons Solicitors, 2012). Presently, women now can occupy positions even in professions considered male-dominated. Many researchers try to prove that women are more responsible and hard working and can perform with more efficiency than their male counterparts. However, there appears to be a constant conflict between mutually beneficial relationships and contemporary situations, where males dominate the social, political and professional spheres (Taylor, Kemeny, Reed, Bower, & Grunewald, 2000). Many women claim that they have fewer opportunities to succeed in their work than men do and have to exert greater effort in order to be promoted in their jobs. Men are more readily employed and more supported by their employers than women (Bergman, 2003). Research funded by the European Commission showed that generally women who work full-time, receive only three-fourths of the hourly earnings of men. This holds true in the European Union in all professions with equal qualification levels and ages of men and women (Equal Opportunity Management Guidelines, 2006). A study by Kattara in 2005 of career challenges of female managers in Egyptian hotels found out that the majority of female managers were not in situations that would lead them to the positions of general managers. “The study detected several factors preventing female managers from reaching the glass ceiling. The stepwise multiple regression showed that 35.5 percent of the variance in the existence of challenges could be explained by four factors; gender discrimination, relationships at work, mentor support and lack of network access” (Kattara, 2005). Hence, the difficulty in advancing in the corporate ladder may have prodded some women to set up their own businesses in order to gain a position where they can exert more influence. The Women’s Enterprise Task Force (WETF) (2009) reported that in 2003, women constituted 27% of self-employed people in the UK and that 12-14% of businesses were owned by women. They also found out that from 2009 onwards, women who make up 46% of the workforce are now nearly 29% of the self-employed in the UK, and 15% of the 4.8 million businesses in the country are majority-owned by women. Most recent statistics report that the 15% total women-led enterprises represent about 700,000 businesses nationwide. These greatly contribute to the economy amounting to more than ?70 billion aside from the creation and sustaining of new jobs, which are crucial to the country’s economic recovery and growth (Women’s Enterprise Policy Group, 2011). Birch (2011) reports that two-thirds of female employers foresee a growth in their businesses in the next two to three years, and even if only half of them succeed, it is predicted that the economy would receive a boost of ?5bn and the availability of more than 240,000 jobs. The survey reported by the Women’s Enterprise Policy Group (2011) indicates that 86% of women-led small-medium enterprises (SMEs) are micro businesses, or employ a small staff (between 1 and 9 people); 13% are small businesses employing between 10-49 people and 3% lead medium-sized businesses employing 50-249 people. Women-led businesses have a more steady employment, its staffing is predicted to remain the same for at least a year. 44% of these businesses are perceived by the women leaders as social enterprises. These women were encouraged to set up their business mostly for reasons of financial assistance and funding and help with childcare. 15% of women seek the advice of a business mentor, while 42% network with more experienced entrepreneurs in order to learn the ropes of the business (Women’s Enterprise Policy Group, 2011). Self-employment became a choice for some women for their own independence and prioritization of their families. About a quarter of these women chose “increased independence” or “for a change” as their main reason for setting up their own business (Office for National Statistics, 2009). A fifth of self-employed women reasoned that they wanted to combine their family commitments with their work, so they chose to work at home to enjoy it in a flexible manner. Nationally, 30% of self-employed women hold office at home. On the other hand, men mostly reasoned that they opted for self-employment to make more money (Women’s Enterprise Task Force, 2009). Research on women’s entrepreneurship in 41 countries was done by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2004, in WETF, 2009) and it was found that women were less optimistic and self-confident about starting their own business as compared to men. This is because of their fear of failure. However, women who have been employed and have built their own social network in business are more likely to become entrepreneurs themselves because they see the social and economic benefits it would bring them. In the United Kingdom, 3.6% of women compared to 7.4% of men started their own enterprises (GEM, 2008 in WETF, 2009). This is consistent with other countries except for the US and Germany where the gender gap is smaller. In the past two decades, women-owned businesses doubled in quantity from 17% to 34%. HSBC Bank data (in WETF, 2009) found that UK has the most number of active women than men in entrepreneurship. To substantiate this, their data revealed that 1 in 4 businesses in the UK are owned by women, and 1 in 4 women-owned businesses are run by individuals who have previously handled a business, compared to one third for men. Most of these businesses are involved in retail/wholesale and hotels, and not many are in the line of manufacturing and construction. In terms of leadership, men and women differed in their approaches. Eagly (2007) identified two major characteristics that differentiated men from women leaders. Women leaders are known to have more communal traits such as kindness, concern for others, warmth and gentleness, while men leaders had agentic traits such as confidence, aggressiveness and self-direction. Stereotypically, leadership is ascribed more with agentic traits, which means men are seen as more natural leaders, leaving women leaders at a disadvantage. This implies that women leaders face a double bind (Eagly & Carli, 2004) because they are expected to be both: communal leaders due to traits believed to be inherent in the female gender role as well as agentic leaders due to traits believed to be inherent in a leader. Balancing such traits may be a challenge for women leaders since these traits can counter each other. It is commonly believed that women lack the stereotypical agentic qualities of a good leader because they are not tough enough and do not take charge. However, if a woman leader displays agentic characteristics such as being directive and assertive, she is viewed as being unfeminine. Such a situation leaves women leaders with difficulties in finding an appropriate and effective leadership style (Eagly, 2007). Since women entrepreneurs are in charge of their own business, Yoder (2001) recommends a middle ground leadership strategy where they play the role of coach or teacher in a transformational leadership approach. This style has culturally feminine aspects such as “individualized consideration” behaviors (Hackman, Furniss, Hills, & Patterson, 1992), while being androgynous in nature. Hyde (2005) contends that female leaders are more transformational than male leaders. They exceeded men on individualized consideration, an aspect that encompasses supportive, encouraging treatment of subordinates. Companies with more women on their boards of directors are likely to turn in better financial performances than those with fewer women on the board of directors (Catalyst Report, 2007, in WETF, 2009). Thus, when the women represent 30% of the board, the company yields more profit by the threefold (Gavurin Intelligence, 2008, in WETF, 2009). The Women’s Enterprise Task Force (2009) contends that women entrepreneurs are more innovative than their male counterparts, that is why they are more likely to come up with products and services that are novel and marketable. Thus, supporting such women-owned businesses would imply supporting more innovation that can bring about more profit over-all. It was also reported that women entrepreneurs are more highly educated than male entrepreneurs and are likely to have a PhD qualification which may hasten the growth of their business. The current recession leaves many women jobless. However, it also offers the opportunity for economically inactive women or those with redundant positions in their companies who are easily displaced, to be self-employed. Therefore, such opportunities and benefits of self-employment should be communicated to these women who may be disheartened by their economic distress. Such communication may be done by local community organizations and amenities. The Women’s Enterprise Task Force (2009) also encourage support structures, professional advice networks and JobCentre Plus to “offer self-employment opportunities through the provision of skills training, access to finance support and business planning support” (Delta Economics, 2009, in WETF, 2009). Such support system will enable women to maximize their skills and potentials by gaining the necessary experience for starting their own enterprises and thus, preventing the growth of long-term unemployment. This will not only provide women with social and economic benefits but would enable them to fulfil their dreams of owning and running their own business as well as contributing to the economy. References Bergman, B. (2003). The validation of the women workplace culture questionnaire: gender-related stress and health for Swedish working women. Sex Roles, 49, 287–297. Birch, K. (2011). Women’s enterprise: the ‘secret weapon’ for recovery of UK economy, The 3rdimagazine.co.uk., [Online] Available at http://www.the3rdimagazine.co.uk/2011/10/women%E2%80%99s-enterprise-the- %E2%80%98secret-weapon%E2%80%99-for-recovery-of-uk-economy/ [Accessed November 5, 2012] Eagly, A.H. (2007). 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