28th Annual Conference of the British Academy of Management (BAM)

September, 9th-11th 2014, Belfast.

Italian women entrepreneurs: An empirical investigation

Authors:

Michela Mari (corresponding) Tor Vergata University of Rome

michela.mari@uniroma2.it

Sara Poggesi Tor Vergata University of Rome

sara.poggesi@uniroma2.it

Luisa De Vita Sapienza University of Rome

luisa.devita@uniroma1.it

Abstract

This article portrays the current situation of female entrepreneurship in Italy by empirically

investigating how demographic characteristics, human capital, motivations, environment and work-

life balance are mostly able to influence the Italian women-owned firms’ performance.

Academic research on Italian female entrepreneurship is still very limited, even though Italy has

the primacy in Europe in terms of number of female-owned firms: at the end of 2012, about 23.5%

of Italian firms were female-owned (Osservatorio Unioncamere 2013). Thus, this paper contributes

to fill the existing gap by investigating 307 Italian female-owned firms. Interesting results emerge

and some of them can be explained by deepening the Italian socio-cultural context; in particular, the

role of the family and the difficulty in balancing work and family assume peculiar characteristics

worthy of further consideration in future research.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship, women entrepreneurship, Italy.

1. Introduction

In 2010, more than 104 million women between 18 and 64 years old were actively engaged in

starting and running new business ventures; another 83 million women were running established

businesses that they had started over 3½ years earlier. These data mean that 187 million out of 400

million entrepreneurs in the world in 2010 were women (GEM 2012); even more interestingly, their

number grew so rapidly by the end of the ’80s in many developed and developing regions to the point

that Brush and Cooper (2012) defined female-owned businesses as one of the fastest growing

entrepreneurial populations in the world.

In academia, the gender factor entered in 1976 with the seminal work by Schwartz (1976). Since

then a growing number of studies on women entrepreneurs have been published. Key issues on the

topic have included the psychology and motivations of women entrepreneurs, their leadership

practices and networking activities, their access to external capital, firm performance and growth (e.g.

Verheul and Thurik 2001; Fairlie and Robb 2009; Minniti 2009; Estrin and Mickiewicz 2011).

Moreover, what has traditionally characterized the female entrepreneurship research area is a

geographical bias of the research towards US and Anglo-Saxon countries.

The strong interest in the US and Anglo-Saxon countries is not surprising: they are the countries

in which the research on female entrepreneurship started (e.g. Hisrich and O’Brien 1981; Brush

1992); in which foundations and associations are strongly active in gathering data and in collaborating

with university research groups (e.g. the Kauffman Foundation, U.S. Small Business Administration);

and in which some topics can be really investigated (e.g. the role of venture capitalists and business

angels).

However, studies from other countries, both developed and developing ones (such as Africa,

Jordan, Malaysia, Japan), have recently begun to appear in international journals, thus contributing

to enrich the debate on the topic, also thanks to a focus on features about female entrepreneurs not

investigated before (De Vita et al. 2013).

Among the historically overlooked countries there is, certainly, Italy. To our knowledge, although

the research in the country is flourishing (Franchi 1992; David 2006; Favaretto 2007; Bertolini and

Goglio 2011), papers aimed at depicting the peculiarities of the Italian female entrepreneurship

published in international English journals are very few (Bellucci et al. 2010). That seems surprising

for at least two reasons: on the one hand, Italy has the primacy in Europe in terms of number of

female-owned firms: at the end of 2012, about 23.5% of Italian firms were female-owned

(Osservatorio Unioncamere 2013). On the other hand, Italy – differently from other and most studied,

developed countries – presents some peculiarities in its socio-economic context, i.e. a strong diffusion

of family businesses, a strong family tradition of self-employment, a weak division of domestic and

caring work between women and men, whose analysis can really contribute to extending our

understanding of the female entrepreneurship domain.

The interest towards a country that is different from the US and Anglo-Saxon ones is indeed linked

to the awareness that entrepreneurship does not have the same features all over the world. A country’s

economic and legal environment as well as its national stereotypes, the gender role ideologies and the

social acceptability of an entrepreneurial career, can all affect a country’s proportion of female

entrepreneurship. Thus, by analyzing a “new” country it is possible to test consolidated theories and

investigate how belonging to certain cultures may affect differently female entrepreneurs’ attitudes

and experiences.

Stemming from these considerations, our paper can contribute to the literature by analyzing a

traditional topic – female firms’ performance – in a novel context, i.e. the Italian one, specifically by

analyzing how demographic characteristics, human capital, family, motivations, environment and

work-life balance affect female-owned firms’ performance. The introduction of variables concerning

the family and work life balance contributes to analyze the role that the socio-cultural context in

which the firms and the entrepreneurs are located may play.

As the specific purpose of the paper, only female-owned firms’ experiences are taken into account

for the analysis. This approach helps to avoid interpretation biases of results that could be due to a

gender approach.

By investigating 307 Italian female-owned firms, interesting results emerge and some of them can

be explained by deepening the Italian socio-cultural context; in particular, the role of the family and

the difficulty in balancing family and work, all assume peculiar characteristics worthy of further

consideration in future research.

The paper is organized as follows: the peculiarities of the Italian socio-economic context, namely

national geographical specificities, the level of women’s education and the difficulties in balancing

work with family life are firstly discussed and linked to the Italian women’s choice to turn to self-

employment; the theoretical framework and the hypotheses are presented; the methodology of the

empirical analysis and the results are then illustrated; finally, the theoretical and empirical

implications of the findings are discussed and directions for further research are suggested.

2. The Italian Context

In order to understand the characteristics of female entrepreneurship in Italy, it is first of all

important to analyze the conditions of Italian women in the labour market.

Although, since 1993, the women in occupation rate has been growing in Italy, current data show

that the country is still lagging behind Europe, with an overall employment rate for women of working

age of about 49.9% in 2011, more than twelve points lower than the EU-27 average (62.3%) (Eurostat

2012). These data can be explained by taking into account at least some relevant considerations on:

a) the national geographical specificities; b) the level of women’s education; c) the difficulties of

balancing work with family life.

A large gap between the North and the South of the country in terms of development, availability

of services for firms and families etc. exists and this divergence is also evident if we look at women’s

occupation rate: despite almost 90% of Italian women stating the importance of working, the female

employment rate is equal to 55.6% in the North of Italy against 30.8% in the South of the Country

(Istat RCFL 2012).

Regarding the level of education, only 33% of Italian women with primary and lower secondary

education have a job, compared to 48% in France and 53% in Germany (Eurostat 2012). Moreover,

women with a higher level of education show an employment rate that is 40% higher when compared

to that of women with a lower level of education (Istat 2010). Unfortunately, although Italian women

with a high level of education succeed in entering the labour market, they are more likely than men

to have atypical contracts and problems in achieving high career levels. The vertical segregation, the

so-called “glass ceiling” or “sticky floor”, often studied in the literature, is one of the problems faced

by Italian women, as well as the gender pay gap (Pruna 2007; Scherer and Reyneri 2008).

As far as the difficulties of balancing work with family life are concerned, it has to be highlighted

that having children has a strong impact on the occupation rate of Italian women. This impact seems

to be specifically related to the number of children they have: women with one child score 4.5% less

in the occupation rate when compared to women without children; this distance increases for women

with two children (about 10%), reaching about 22% for women with three or more children (Eurostat

2012). These data differ, for example, from those registered in France, where the differences among

the occupation rates of women without children, with one child or two children are limited and the

gap is evident only with the third child. The lower possibilities for Italian women with children to

remain in paid work seem to be related to two factors (Saraceno 2011): 1) the weak development of

welfare services: the national coverage of early childcare services, for example, is very poor and does

not reach even 10% (Istat 2010)1 being still far from the objectives of the Barcelona summit (2002),

which requires at least 33% of coverage; 2) the weak division of domestic and caring work: recent

analysis shows an unequal division of family work between men and women, with a consequent sharp

decrease in paid working hours for women with children and an increase in men’s paid working hours

(Anxo et al. 2011). Data are explanatory: the Italian employed women daily devote 3’53” to family

work, against 3’11” of German employed women and 3’21” of Finnish women. Italian men, on the

other hand, devote less time to family work than other European men (1’5”), specifically one hour

less in a day than Belgian, Hungarian, Slovenian and Swedish men.

1The national coverage of early childcare services is heterogeneous and varies from region to region: for example in the

North of Italy, the Emilia Romagna region covers approximately 30% of early childcare services while in Campania (a

Southern region) these services are guaranteed to less than 2% of the population.

The inability to find a job – because of the socio-economic context in which women live – the

different opportunities in salaried jobs (above all for women with higher education) and the need to

reconcile family and work, have pushed Italian women to turn to self-employment.

However, it is important to point out that, despite recent years’ attempts at a national level to

support women’s employment and help them reconcile family and work, for example via public

incentives for female entrepreneurship (see, for example, Italian laws n.53/00 or n.215/922), the

reconciliation of family and work still cannot be considered a result achieved by those women who

decide to become entrepreneurs. Research has shown that the freedom to manage working hours

applies only to certain entrepreneurial activities and not, for example, to those that are typically

feminine, such as commerce, bars or restaurants with long opening hours and where there are strong

constraints and difficulties in combining family and work, particularly when women work alone or

with a small number of employees. Indeed the available data show that, in the case of pregnancy,

female entrepreneurs return to work more quickly than women occupied as employees due to their

fear of losing clients or leaving their company without management.

Thus, rather than a choice to balance work and family, the increase in women entrepreneurs seems

to be due to the inability to find a job and to overcome the structural barriers that prevent women

from achieving high professional levels. Furthermore, given the specific characteristics of the Italian

socio-economic entrepreneurial context, family businesses or family traditions of self-employment

are important factors in determining women’s participation in entrepreneurship. Many female

entrepreneurs have been exposed to business socialization during their childhood and, in many cases,

women operate the business with their husbands or have at least one family member with them

(Fornengo and Guadagnini 1999). Moreover the role of the family is also crucial with respect to the

influence of family responsibilities that represent, for Italy, a key variable to explain not only the

choice of becoming an entrepreneur but also the chances of success.

Further, statistics show that the percentage of Italian female-owned firms has increased in recent

years, being around 1,430,900 (i.e. 23.4% of all Italian firms) in 2013. These firms are mostly in the

service sector (70.3%), followed by agriculture (17%) and manufacturing activities (12.7%). Of these

firms 97.4% is characterized by micro dimensions (from one to nine employees); however, they are

able to increase occupation: the occupation rate has increased by 15% between 2003 and 2008, against

3% of male-owned firms (OsservatorioUnioncamere2013).

2Law 53/00 on maternity and parental leave ratifies the possibility of providing funding for projects that allow the

replacement of an entrepreneur, which benefits the period of compulsory maternity leave or parental leave, with another

employee or self-employed person (article 9c). Law 215/92, instead, provides a series of loans and benefits to women-

owned businesses.

The depicted context makes the issue of the Italian female entrepreneurs’ performance and its

implications very relevant from both a social and economic perspective.

3. Theoretical framework and the hypotheses

Stemming from these considerations with regard to the Italian context, this paper aims at analyzing

how demographic characteristics, human capital, family, motivations, environment and work-life

balance affect female-owned firms’ performance. The hypotheses are hereafter analyzed.

3.1. Demographic characteristics

Research into female entrepreneurship has always tried to outline the profile and characteristics of

women entrepreneurs. The overall results suggest that female entrepreneurs are between the ages of

35 and 45, married with children and well educated (Hisrich and Brush 1984; Brodsky 1993; Cowling

and Taylor 2001).

The age of the woman entrepreneur is among the most investigated variables; interestingly,

research data reveal that age has a U-shaped effect on the likelihood of the choice of self-employment.

Married women are more likely to become self-employed but the probability of starting a new

business reaches a minimum at 40 years (Bruce 1999). In the same direction, other studies find that,

for female-owned firms, the business’ success is inversely proportional to the age of the entrepreneur

(Kalleberg and Leicht 1991; Singh et al. 2001). Moreover age may positively correlate with attitudes

towards risk (which is higher for younger women) and with the tendency to give greater priority to

family life over working life (which is higher for older women) (e.g. Holtz-Eakin et al. 1994).

Also marital status and having children have a positive influence on the likelihood of being self-

employed. Being married and having more children increase the possibility of becoming

entrepreneurs (Bruce 1999), though empirical evidence shows that this is true only for less qualified

women (e.g. Burke et al. 2000). With reference to performance, and whether married women with

children are more likely to become entrepreneurs, they usually have a greater propensity for family

work and therefore have lower business performance in terms of revenues and number of employees

(De Bruin et al.2007; McGowan et al. 2012).

Rather unexpectedly, with regard to the Italian context, demographic variables are often not

explored in official reports and consequently are not correlated with any variable; however, despite

the limited availability of national data, remarkable differences emerge from other countries.

Although the proportion of married women who are entrepreneurs is still high, in recent years a

growing number of young women, free from family ties, have been involved in the process of business

creation in Italy. Thus, in a context so heavily influenced by family ties and in which childcare is

almost entirely delegated to women, the opportunity to devote oneself to one’s own business is

expected to increase the commitment and therefore the chances of success.

Accordingly we hypothesize:

H1: The young age of the female entrepreneur and consequent absence of family responsibilities will

be positively associated with business performance.

3.2. Human Capital

According to Becker (1964), human capital consists of “achieved attributes that lead to increased

levels of productivity and profitability”. Those attributes are specifically related to aspects such as

training, formal education and business skills. Carter et al. (2003) argue that, besides education and

training, human capital also derives from work experience, thus making it important to further

consider, as influencing factors, previous occupation and the overall level of entrepreneurial

experience.

With regard to entrepreneurs’ skills, academia stresses that those entrepreneurs with a higher level

of education and business experience have a greater ability for the gathering and analyzing of

information about the availability of new business opportunities, including financial ones.

As far as training and formal education are concerned, studies show that the formal education of

the entrepreneur is related to the performance of the firm (e.g. Brush and Hisrich 1991; Box et al.

1993). With regard to what specifically concerns women, they are more likely to have a humanistic

background instead of a business, sciences or engineering one, even if a scientific or technical

background seems to be preferred by outside investors, especially if enriched by specific business

training or work experience (Carter and Allen 1997; Carter et al. 2003).

With regard to work experience, research has shown a robust positive relationship between prior

work experience in the same industry or line of business and the survival/success of firms (Brüderl et

al. 1992; Box et al. 1993; Cooper et al. 1994; Carter et al. 1997). Contradictory results are obtained,

for example, by Miskin and Rose (1990), who show that previous ownership experience was not

significantly related to female-owned firms’ profitability while it was significant for male-owned

firms. However, more recent research demonstrates that having a ‘prior to start-up’ experience in a

relevant field provides both male and female would-be entrepreneurs with the chance to identify

opportunities and better understand the specific business environment in which their business will

operate (Cooper and Park 2008;Cromie and Hayes 2011). The same relationship occurs with the

increase in the number of years in entrepreneurial activities for women (Cromie and Hayes 2011).

All these considerations fit very well with the Italian context and thus we hypothesize:

H2: A high level of education, as well as having attended professional training courses, will be

positively associated with Italian female entrepreneurs’ business performance.

H3: The entrepreneurial experience of the Italian women entrepreneurs will be positively associated

with business performance.

3.3. The influence of the family

Support from family is a fundamental element for firm’s success as high levels of support may

promote entrepreneurial persistence and risk taking (Bruderl and Preisendorfer, 1998). This support

can be strategic, moral and/or financial (Aronoff and Ward 1995; Chang et al. 2009; Habbershon and

Williams 1999; Hoffman et al. 2006; Pearson et al. 2008).

As the literature highlights the difficulties of women in the use of networks and interpersonal

relationships that promote access to information, advice, ideas as well as financial and human

resources (e.g. Manolova et al. 2007), family members could provide support in strategic decisions

(e.g., Chrisman, Chua, and Steier 2005), in obtaining external funding sources (Aldrich and Cliff

2003; Anderson, Jack, and Dodd 2005; Dyer and Handler 1994) or in using the family’s finances

(e.g., seed money), in providing help at all stages of the venture (Dyer 2003). As family members

tend to exhibit altruistic and nurturing behaviors (Steier 2003), such help can be provided by family

member even if they are not co-owners.

The influence of the family can be even broader; beyond prior work experience, highlighted in the

previous section, the observation of others can indeed contribute to develop informal business

experience that, in turns, influences the firm’s performance. In this vein, having a parent(s) or other

family members business owners can help entrepreneur to gain knowledge, expertise, capabilities and

skills that can positively influence own business venture (e.g. Lentz and Laband, 1990; Dyer and

Handler 1994).

To investigate the role and the influence of the family in the Italian firms, and in particular in the

Italian female firms, seems particularly important, as almost 73% of the firms in the Country are

family business (Family Business International Monitor 2008).

Accordingly we hypothesize:

H4: The moral support of the family and the strategic support of the family will be positively

associated with the Italian female-owned firms’ business performance.

H5: The influence of a family tradition of self-employment and the presence of family co-owner(s)

will be positively associated with the Italian female-owned firms’ business performance.

3.4. Motivations

Over the years both academics and practitioners have devoted a great deal of attention to the

investigation of the specific reasons why women decide to become involved in an entrepreneurial

path.

In psychology, motivation is traditionally defined as the psychological process that gives

behaviour purpose and direction (Maslow et al. 1970). From a business perspective, different

motivations are likely to create different commitments and a desire to succeed which, in turn, can

affect entrepreneurial experience and business performance (Kreitner 1995).

Literature on entrepreneurship has investigated a number of personality factors able to drive

women’s decisions to become entrepreneurs over the years. The most relevant motivations are the

classical need for achievement, need for independence and necessity (e.g. McClelland 1961; Hisrich

1984-1985). Women entrepreneurs with a high need for achievement are defined as opportunity-

motivated: in establishing their own business they mainly look at their own personal advancement, at

the enhancement of their self-esteem and at personal achievement. Besides, women with a strong

need for independence are those with a relevant need for freedom – both of thought and of action –

and this desire may be expressed in various ways, such as in the need for professional and economic

autonomy, or, for example, in the need for developing one’s own business idea. Lastly, necessity-

motivated are those women who become entrepreneurs because of a motive, such as the need to avoid

gender-related work discriminations or the need to reconcile work with family life (e.g. McGowan et

al. 2012).

Over the years, the variety of motivations associated with women’s reasons for creating new

ventures was analyzed through the pull/push model (e.g. Orhan and Scott 2001). This model reduces

the motivations to two main categories, related to the fact that the choice to be an entrepreneur may

depend either on push (unemployment, dissatisfaction with current job, work-life balance) or pull

factors (greater independence, self-fulfillment, flexibility, personal achievement) (e.g. Hughes 2006;

Ismail et al.2012).

The motivations that drive women to start a business and thus the related business performance

are closely linked to the socio-economic context in which the firms operate. Empirical investigations

on the topic show, for example, that in countries where there are economic and institutional

deficiencies, self-employment may be a survival strategy (Woldie and Adersua 2004), thus push

factors come into play.

Stemming from these considerations, the Italian case appears to be of interest. On the one hand,

the low female employment rate, strong family responsibilities and the limited presence of public

services place Italy close to countries where female entrepreneurship is chosen mainly for necessity.

On the other hand, the high education of women and the difficulties in pursuing career advancement

suggest the possibility that entrepreneurship represents an appealing opportunity. Specifically, in the

Italian context, an interesting link between women’s motivation for running a firm and their

educational level emerges. Women with a high level of education face greater difficulties in achieving

satisfying levels of career than men, with a very strong “glass-ceiling” effect (Pruna 2007; Scherer

and Reyneri 2008). These are reasons why the motivation leading these women to be involved in an

entrepreneurial activity is basically related to a high level of need both for achievement and

independence. Conversely, women with a low level of education are those who face greater

difficulties in finding a job. Their choice of becoming entrepreneurs thus does not represent a choice,

but a real necessity.

Thus, we expect that motivations of personal achievement, self-esteem and/or desire for

independence are positively associated with firms’ performance; conversely, we expect a negative

relationship between necessity and the performance of firms.

That being stated, we formulate the following hypothesis:

H6: Italian women entrepreneurs motivated by personal achievement, self-esteem and/or desire for

independence will show positive business performance.

H7: Italian women entrepreneurs motivated by necessity will show negative business performance.

3.5. Environmental Influence

Various environmental characteristics (e.g. the sector in which the entrepreneur operates, the

availability of financial capital, the socio-political climate) may have a strong influence on the

performance of firms (e.g. Dess et al. 1997).

With regard to female-owned firms, interesting observations can firstly be related to the sector in

which those firms operate. Traditionally, female businesses refer mainly to the service sector where

firms are typically small, characterized by a low initial capital requirement and, consequently, a lower

exposure to entry barriers.

Women’s decisions to choose this sector are generally based on their previous experience: when

women decide to start a business, they are more likely than men to choose a business they already

know about and/or deal with (e.g. Lee-Gosselin and Grisé 1990). Moreover, women have to take into

account the availability of start-up capital. Traditionally, women who decide to run a business have

to face greater difficulties in obtaining funding when compared to their male counterparts. Among

the reasons why banks are more reluctant to grant loans to women are (e.g. Arenius and Kovalainen

2006; Constantinidis et al. 2006; Orser et al. 2006; Verheul et al. 2009): a) women’s low experience

in self-employment, and a consequently greater perceived risk for banks in financing female-owned

firms; b) women often donot meet the collateral requirements requested by banks; c) a limited credit

history. Furthermore, service firms also have a slower growth rate if compared to firms belonging to

other activity sectors and this may represent a further reason for banks’ reluctance to finance female-

owned firms. Furthermore, previous research on the topic has highlighted that women entrepreneurs

prefer to rely on their personal assets than to ask for external financial support (e.g. Heilbrunn 2005).

All these considerations fit very well with the Italian context, where a prevalence of women-owned

businesses is expected in the service sector and where women entrepreneurs make a lower use of

external, formal sources of financing.

That being stated, we formulate the following hypotheses:

H8: The service sector will be negatively related to the Italian female-owned firms’ business

performance.

H9: Sources of business funding and financing other than family and/or friends will be positively

associated with the Italian female-owned firms’ business performance.

3.6. Work-life balance

Only recently have entrepreneurship scholars drawn attention to the embeddedness of female

entrepreneurship in family and household responsibilities for the study of the performance of

businesses run by women (Aldrich and Cliff 2003; de Bruin et al. 2007). Traditionally, female

entrepreneurship has been seen as a way to achieve a better balance between work and family, and

thus it was analyzed only in those researches mostly devoted to the investigation of the reasons that

pushed women to start a business (Caputo and Dolinsky 1998; Jurik 1998; Boden 1999), while little

attention was paid to the results achieved.

Recent studies indicate not only that entrepreneurship “may not be a panacea for achieving work-

family balance” (Kirkwood and Tootell 2008, 298), but also that the strategies adopted by female

entrepreneurs for balancing work and family can help to explain the performance of women-owned

firms (Jennings and McDougald 2007).

Evidence suggests that for most women obtaining and maintaining an appropriate balance between

the domestic and business spheres of their lives remains a constant challenge and source of tension

and stress. Firms run by women with children tend to be smaller in terms of employment, revenue,

and income levels. Moreover, these women are more likely to use coping strategies that (intentionally

or unintentionally) constrain rather than enhance the growth of their firms (Jennings and McDougald

2007).On the other hand, female entrepreneurs, who desire to achieve high growth for their business,

experience a strong work-family conflict which is often associated with a sense of guilt for neglecting

the family (Shelton 2006; McGowan et al. 2012).

A further relevant factor is related to the social context in which women live, since women’s

choices and behaviours are influenced and constrained by institutional structures and normative

environment (Lewis 2006; Craig and Mullan 2011). For example, if a society mainly defines women

through roles connected to family and household responsibilities, societal values implicitly interpret

women’s entrepreneurship as less desirable and, as a result, provide lower normative support (Baughn

et al. 2006; Langowitz and Minniti 2007). Consequently, this can lead to a lower level of opportunity

recognition for women. This is especially true in Mediterranean welfare states, including Italy, where

the unequal division of family work between genders reduces the opportunities for women to devote

themselves to running their own business.

Accordingly we hypothesise:

H10: Considering the low level of services in Italy, women who have a high level of external support

from family, partner, childcare, etc. are those more involved in the business and thus have better

performance.

4. Research Design

4.1. Sample

The data for this study were collected in Italy in the time period May-December 2012. The data

gathering was based on a standardized questionnaire with 54 open questions and multiple-choice

answers administered either via personal interviews – using trained enumerators – or through a

specific website created especially for this purpose.

The questionnaire was divided into four main sections. The first was focused on women

entrepreneurs’ demographic details and firms’ structural data. The second measured the women

entrepreneurs’ human capital and environmental factors; statements have been mainly derived from

Lerner et al. (1997), Carter et al. (2003) and Coleman (2007) research. The third part dealt with the

main motivations influencing women’s decisions to become entrepreneurs, as well as the main

difficulties those women encountered in their entrepreneurial path. Questions were developed by

adapting to the Italian context variables used, among others, by Hughes (2006) and

Kirkwood (2009). Finally, the fourth section investigated women’s work-life balance and questions

were conceived to highlight which aspects of the broad debate on reconciliation (e.g. Crompton and

Lyonette 2006; Lewis 2009; McCarthy et al. 2010) are significant for Italian female-owned firms.

The choice to use mainly tested items from earlier research was adopted to enhance the

questionnaire’s validity and to allow comparisons with other research; however, specific questions

and new and/or different options were added in order to better catch the specificities of the Italian

context.

In order to identify our sample, three selection criteria were fixed: firms should be women-owned;

women had to hold at least 51% of the social capital and at least one person had to be employed in

the firm. We asked for the support of the local committees for female entrepreneurship of the Italian

Chambers of Commerce in order to identify these firms. However, the difficulties encountered in

finding the contact details on women-owned businesses, have made collaboration with the most

important and influential Italian women entrepreneurs’ associations necessary.

Approximately 3,000 women entrepreneurs were initially reached. A total of 490 responses were

obtained, resulting in a 16% response rate. After excluding some questionnaires that contained errors

or missing values, a final number of 307 usable responses met our criteria, corresponding to almost a

10% response rate. In line with the national situation (OsservatorioUnioncamere 2013), even in our

sample the majority of the female entrepreneurs operate in the service sector (68%), followed by

those involved in manufacturing (17%) and agriculture (15%).

4.2. Research variables

The dependent variable of our model is business performance.

Due to the fact that, traditionally, female-owned businesses in Italy are in general small, we chose

to use two indicators to capture different aspects of women-owned firms’ performance: business

revenues and number of employees. They are measures of performance very frequently used in

previous research (e.g. Venkatraman and Ramanujam 1986; Du Rietzand Henrekson 2000; Danes et

al. 2007; Mitchelmore, Rowley, 2013). These indicators are here built as follows:

1) Revenues: estimated at the end of 2011. Five categories for this indicator were identified: from

less than €50,000 up to more than €1m.

2) Number of employees: estimated at the end of 2011. Five categories for this indicator were

identified: from 1 employee to more than 50 employees.

The independent variables are grouped into six clusters of factors able to affect female-owned

firms’ performance:

1. Demographic variables include the age and marital status of the entrepreneur (married; divorced;

single), the age of the business and the presence of children (a dummy coded variable: Yes=1;

No=0).

2. Human capital variables include the education level (elementary, secondary, bachelor’s degree,

master’s or PhD), the attendance on training courses(a dummy coded variable: Yes=1; No=0),

previous work experience (employee; entrepreneur; not working), entrepreneurial experience in

the current firm(a dummy coded variable: Yes=1; No=0), how the woman has become an

entrepreneur (whether founding the firm, acquiring the firm or inheriting it), percentage of

ownership (between 51% and 99%or 100% of the social capital)

3. The influence of family variables include the entrepreneurial tradition (a dummy coded variable:

Yes=1; No=0), the presence of family members in the firm (a dummy coded variable: Yes=1;

No=0), the strategic support from the family (a dummy coded variable: Yes=1; No=0), and the

moral support from the family, that is measured used a three-points Likert scale questions (1= no

support from family, 2= intermediate support from family, 3= high support) .

4. Environmental influence variables include the sector of activity (agriculture, manufacturing

labour intensive service sector, knowledge intensive service sector), and the sources of finance

(both for constituting and/or for running the firm). In particular, four items measuring the sources

of financing for constituting the firm have been used: personal savings; loans from

family/friends; loans from banks; public loans. Six items have been used to measure the sources

of finance for running the firm: self-financing; personal savings; loans from family/friends; loans

from banks; public loans and discounts and deferments. Multiple answers were allowed.

5. Motivation variables consider whether the female entrepreneur was motivated to enter into

business by a desire for independence, because of a need for achievement, or pushed by necessity

motives. Multiple answers were allowed.

6. Work-life balance variables consider what women entrepreneurs value as important in managing

the firms, i.e. the support they receive from parents, their partner, household workers, the

availability of public/private services and flexible working hours; three-point Likert scale

questions (1= not important, 2= important, 3= really important) were used.

5. Research Findings

5.1. Descriptive Statistics

Table 1 presents descriptive statistics associated with our sample.

---------------------------

Table 1 about here

---------------------------

The largest percentage of women in the sample is aged between 36 and 50 (51.3%); most of those

interviewed are married (73.5%) and 63.9% of all respondents are mothers. The majority of the

women entrepreneurs in the study have a high level of education; 43.2% of the sample has a secondary

education; 37.1% has one academic degree and 11.9% of them have a master’s or PhD.

Looking at the characteristics of the firms, results show that our sample is largely made up of small

businesses: 82.6% of the firms in our sample have less than nine employees while only 3.9% of

companies have more than 50 employees. As far as revenues are concerned, 43.2% of the small firms

of our sample (from two to nine employees) have annual revenues of more than €250,000 while

76.9% of firms from ten to 19 employees exceed €1m of annual revenues.

The small size of the business justifies the almost exclusive use of personal resources not only for

the creation of the company but also for the current financing of the activities undertaken. The

majority of women entrepreneurs who founded the company declare they had used personal savings

as resources for financing the firms (60.6%). Likewise results show that bank loans are not the main

sources of financing for women in our sample: the majority of interviewed women revert to self-

financing.

As far as previous experience is concerned, most of the women entrepreneurs in the sample

(57.7%) were employed before launching their own businesses and only 21.3% of them had previous

experience in starting a business. Notwithstanding, 64.2% of the women in our dataset created their

own current firm. These data can be explained by the business socialization that women had during

their childhood: 57.1% of the women entrepreneurs in our sample have an entrepreneur in the family

of origin.

Interestingly, despite the small size of the company, only 34.1% of women entrepreneurs held

100% of the social capital. Worth noting is that almost half of the interviewed women entrepreneurs

(47.8%) have at least one member of the family as a business partner and in 18% of cases the

husband/partner works in the same firm. Despite these findings, family members have not pushed or

encouraged women to start a business. Most entrepreneurs have started the business to achieve greater

professional fulfillment or, in many cases, in order to obtain greater independence, including

economic independence.

The analysis of the work-life balance questions reveals that most of the women entrepreneurs in

our sample were not satisfied by the support they received from their parents (54.9%), from their

partner (46.6%), from their household workers (68.7%) and from the availability of public/private

services (76%); only 33% of the interviewed women entrepreneurs were really unsatisfied of the level

of flexibility associated with the working hours in their firms.

5.2. Multivariate Analysis

Table 3 presents the ordinal regression results used to test the hypotheses in our sample.

Table 3 about here

Demographic variables – In our sample having children seems to have a significant and negative

effect on revenues as a dependent variable, Hence, H1 is partially supported.

Human Capital – The impact of human capital factors on performance has mixed results in our

sample. A significant and positive relationship between professional training and the likelihood of

scoring high revenues is registered. Moreover, the level of education (primary school) seems to have

a significant and negative effect on revenues as a dependent variable. Thus, H2 is supported.

For what concerns the role of previous entrepreneurial experience and the experience in the current

firm, results from our sample show a positive and significant relationship between the entrepreneurial

experience in the current firm and the likelihood of having higher revenues. For what concerns the

way in which the woman has become entrepreneur of the current firm, results show that having

inherited the firm has a positive and significant relationship with both the number of employees and

the revenues as dependent variables. Thus, H3 is partially supported.

Family – Interestingly and differently from our hypothesis, H4 and H5 are not supported. Indeed,

the relationships between a family entrepreneurial path and family strategic support and the two

dependent variables are not significant as well as the presence of family co-owners in the firm does

not significantly affect both revenues and number of employees. Finally, not having a high level of

moral support from family is negatively related to the likelihood of having a high number of

employees, while no significant relationship is tested for revenues.

Motivations – H6 is partially supported as being pushed by need for achievement leads to a higher

possibility to register a high level of revenues and number of employees. Further, H7 is not supported.

Environmental Influence – In our sample, belonging to the knowledge intensive service sector,

compared to belonging agricultural sector, is negatively related to the likelihood of scoring high

revenues, while no significant relationship is tested with the number of employees. Thus, H8 is

partially supported.

Within the same cluster a significant relationship with the likelihood of scoring high revenues is

observed for a number of possible sources of business financing, namely, self-financing, loans from

family and friends, from banks, as well as from public loans and for discounts and deferments. If we

consider the number of employees as a dependent variable, a positive relationship is tested only for

public loans and discounts and deferments as sources of business financing. Loans from family and

friends as sources of business financing have instead a negative and significant relationship with the

likelihood of having a higher number of employees. Interestingly, no apparent significance is tested

in the sample for any of the considered sources of business funding and both the revenues and the

number of employees Thus, H9 is partially supported.

Work-life Balance – Predictors with a significant and positive relationship with the likelihood of

scoring high revenues are those representing the women who received lower-intermediate support

from their partner, together with those representing women valuing as scant the support received from

flexible working hours; low support from household workers is, instead, negatively associated with

revenues. Moreover, the results show that the likelihood of having a higher number of employees

is positively influenced by the variable work-life balance, referring in particular to those women who

received lower-intermediate support from their partner, while it is negatively influenced by the results

for those women who received low support from household workers. Thus, H10 is partially supported.

6. Discussion and conclusions

The rationale of this paper was to analyze a traditional topic – female firms’ performance – in a

novel contest, the Italian one, enriching the analysis by also considering some context variables, i.e.

the role of the family and of the work-life balance.

Four interesting results emerge: i) some variables that have been traditionally related to European

and North American firms performance are also relevant in the case of Italian female firms. ii) The

role of family does not seem to be relevant for Italian female firms’ performances. iii) The work-life

balance results confirm the low relevance of family.

For what concerns the first result, having children, having a low level of education, having

entrepreneurial experience, having attended professional training courses, having a motivation linked

to personal achievement, working in the knowledge intensive service sector, obtaining founds from

banks, public loans, family and friends or by using discount and deferments seem to affect, positively

or negatively, female firms’ performance in Italy as well as in many other developed countries. These

results seem to suggest that some relationships go beyond the specific developed socio-economic

context in which the female firm is located and seem to be instead grounded on some common

characteristics shared by such countries. Such characteristics can be positive and thus increase the

firms’ performance and their overall success. That is the case for example of the increasing level of

women education, able to positively impact on business performance, but it is also the case of the

often decreasing number of children per women, due to women’s frequent choice to devote most of

their time to their own business activities.

Similarly, being oriented to professional achievement leads entrepreneurs to be more related to

their work and achieve higher performance. This finding is tested for many developed countries and

it is particularly interesting within the Italian context. Prior research (e.g. Kelley et al. 2011) shows

that in countries where female employment rates are low the main motivation for doing business is

primarily related to the push factors; our findings instead highlight a prevalence of motivations related

to pull factors. This probably means that also for Italy it is affirming a new model of female

participation in business, in which women are more devoted to the development and success of their

own business.

However, negative common characteristics emerge too, as our research confirms. For example,

barriers for women entrepreneurs still exist making women’s businesses being frequently relegated

in the service sector. Moreover, women are still in trouble to obtain external financing that lead, in

some cases, to the need for targeted public incentives as, for example in the case of Italy, the already

mentioned laws n.53/00 and n.215/92 had in recent years have pushed up the number of female-

owned firms.

For what concerns the impact that the family has on Italian female firms’ performance, results do

not test such influence. These results are surprising if we consider the Italian cultural context that

emphasizes the role of the family. In our sample, neither moral support nor strategic support from

family as well as the family tradition of self-employment seem to have any bearing on the

performance of the firm. These results can be understood if we consider the motivation of these

women for establishing their business: the women interviewed show indeed such a high level in their

need for achievement that the supportive role of the family in improving these firms’ performance

seems to be relegated to a marginal role. To support our conclusions we can stress that although most

of the respondents were exposed to business socialization during their childhood, as most of them

have an entrepreneur in the family of origin, women entrepreneurs in our sample have not inherited

the family business but have mostly founded their own firm. So, the entrepreneurial socialization,

rather than influencing the performance of the firm, seems to have an impact on the choice to become

entrepreneurs.

As far as work-life balance is concerned, the most interesting results are related to the role of the

family and to its support for balancing work and family responsibilities.

Contrary to the initial expectations and in line with the results about the role of the family, the

family does not seem to be crucial for the business performances. Although Italy is characterized by

a rather traditional model of division of family workloads, in which both care and domestic works

are assigned predominantly to women and where the largest support still comes from the family of

origin, data from our study do not seem to show a negative relationship between the lack of family

support and performance. While the data highlight a great autonomy of women entrepreneurs in the

simultaneous management of both business and family, surprisingly, the support received from

entrepreneurs’ family of origin has no impact on performance. Moreover firms’ performance is

indeed high even when women declare to receive only low or modest support from their partner.

This outcome can only be partially explained by the consistent number of entrepreneurs aged over

45 (51% of the sample) and by the consequent reduction of care responsibilities; it does seem, instead,

rather to derive from the articulated mix of motivations and expectations that have led those women

to pursue an entrepreneurial career. As already demonstrated by other national surveys on female

entrepreneurship (David, 2006; Gherardi, 2008), care responsibilities within the family cannot be

qualified as the result of a basic division of labour by gender; instead, they become an integral part

of the complex social identity of contemporary women. The constitution of female social identity

then relates more and more to the simultaneous presence and not to the alternation between work-

and family-life. In this sense, the choice of starting a business seems to be the result of women’s

desire to achieve greater independence and personal satisfaction.

These reflections are further confirmed by the data on the use of flexible hours for work life

balance. The desire to achieve professional satisfaction and good performance seems to push the

entrepreneurs toward a stable and continuous presence in the company: more than 50% of our sample

in fact works more than 50 hours a week. As a result, the entrepreneurs who use, although moderately,

flexible schedules to reconcile work and life are those that have lower performance.

More serious however, is the lack of other means of support such as household workers who

instead have a negative effect. This finding highlights the need to implement policies that, regardless

of the informal support, can help women entrepreneurs in the management of family workloads.

A number of policy implications can be drawn from the results of this study.

First, the positive relationship between having attended professional training courses and firm

revenues highlights the need for more professional training programmes to be easily accessible at a

national level, in order to allow Italian women to develop technical skills and, consequently to be

more self-confident in achieving better business results. This topic is also partially linked to that of

the relationship with credit institutions: on the one hand, the diffusion of professional training

programmes should at least partially allow women entrepreneurs to be even more self-confident and

less reluctant to interface with banks; on the other hand the adoption of specific programmes able to

subsidize women’s access to credit not only at a local, but also at a national level, could increase the

propensity of women to become entrepreneurs.

Second, the positive impact of public loans on the performance of women-owned businesses

suggests the opportunity to restart an integrated and structured system of public incentives. At the

present time, funding for female entrepreneurs is not directly provided; it is more generally included

in the support given to young entrepreneurs. These are funds mostly devoted to enhance business

start-ups and there are no aids (including non-monetary) capable of supporting the overall

development of the female-owned firms promoting, for example, the process of growth and

internationalization.

Moreover, although our data show that female-owned firms’ performance is not influenced by the

level of private/public services, it is well known that the widespread availability of both public and

private services is crucial for the development of business and female businesses in particular. They

are important not only to ensure that women have the opportunity to be more focused on their own

business, but also for increasing their propensity, especially for the younger ones, to become

entrepreneurs. In this vein, it is worth noting that currently in Italy there is an ongoing attempt to

simplify and streamline bureaucratic and administrative procedures for starting and managing a firm;

however, the specificities of the female entrepreneur are often not taken into account. Just a few

exceptions, still far from being structured and planned at a national level, exist in some cities of

northern Italy (i.e. Turin, Modena, Bolzano) where local government is trying to really help women

entrepreneurs to save time, for example, by modifying either public offices’ and services’ opening

hours.

Apart from these considerations closely related to our research results, a crucial point for the

support and enhancement of the performance of female-owned businesses is the promotion of a

dialogue between female entrepreneurs and political institutions. Our data show that women

entrepreneurs are not fully socially recognized and legitimized in Italy. Policy statements should thus

encourage the dialogue of institutions with women entrepreneurs, in order to support and increase the

social acceptance of female-owned firms, thus also facilitating the integration of female entrepreneurs

in the community. Making the presence of female entrepreneurs more effective in the negotiating

tables, promoting advocacy and supporting the sharing and exchange of experiences are key elements

to stimulate the competitiveness of female-owned businesses.

Some reflections on the limitations of this study, that can be interesting issues for future research

on the topic, have to be pointed out.

First of all, this work does not consider Italian women’s networking activity and its possible

positive implications on business performance. As networks are a critical source of resources that

help the entrepreneur to overcome the liability of newness and to pursue growth goals, the analysis

of the impact of women’s networks on performance should be worth noting (e.g. Greve and Salaff

2007; Sorenson et al. 2008).

Second, a higher number of respondents would allow for a more robust statistical corroboration of

results, thus permitting a better generalization of the outcomes. Moreover, in this paper our precise

choice was to analyze the characteristics of solely female-owned firms. A possible development of

the research agenda could envisage a cross-analysis on how the socio-cultural Italian peculiarities

analyzed here may differently affect the performance of female-owned and male-owned firms.

Further, the geographical – and thus social and economic – differences of Italy have not been taken

into account in this study in any great depth. Thus, results do not show a different and detailed picture

of female entrepreneurship for the northern, central and southern regions of the country. A higher

number of respondents would surely allow for a more detailed and intriguing investigation.

Finally, interesting results could derive from a more in-depth investigation on the influence of

family ties on female-owned firms’ behaviour and outcomes, specifically focusing on the particular

type of contribution (either material, psychological or relational) provided to the female-owned firm

by the entrepreneur’s family.

Future research might start with this first study on Italian female entrepreneurship, expanding the

sample and including additional issues and variables, thus enriching the academic contribution to the

investigation of a still under-explored topic, so providing useful insights for the public policy domain.

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Table 1 – Descriptive statistic

Demographic

Age of the entrepreneur

20-35 17.4

36-50 51.3

over 51 31.3

Age of the firm

0-4 28.2

5-10 17.4

11-25 30.3

26 and over 24.1

Marital status

Married 73.5

Single 19.7

Divorced 6.8

Presence of children Yes 63.9

No 36.1

Human Capital

Education level

Primary education 7.7

Secondary education 43.2

Degree 37.1

Master or PhD 11.9

Becoming entrepreneurs

Founded their own firm 64.2

Acquired an existing firm 8.4

Inherited the firm 27.4

Previous work experience

Employee 57.7

Entrepreneurs 21.3

Not working 21

Professional training Yes 57.3

No 42.7

Entrepreneurial experience in

the current firm

0-5 35.1

6-10 20.6

11-25 34.1

25 and over 10.2

Equity 100% 34.1

Less than 100% 65.9

Family

Family Entrepreneurial Path Yes 57.1

No 42.9

Family Members Co-Owners

of the Firm

Yes 47.7

No 52.3

Strategic Support from Family Yes 76.22

No 23.78

Environmental

Influence

Business sector

Agriculture 6.52

Manufacturing 26.71

Labour Intensive Service

Sector 13.68

Knowledge Intensive Service Sector

53.09

Sources of business funding*

Personal savings 60.6

Loans from family/friends 16.5

Loans from banks 26.1

Public loans 10.3

Sources of business financing*

Self-financing 67.8

Personal savings 34.2

Loans from family/friends 11.7

Loans from banks 50.2

Public loans 7.5

Discounts and deferments 32.6

Motivations Motivations*

Achievement 13.6

Independence 42.1

Necessity 14

Number of employees

1 42.6

2-9 40.0

10-19 8.4

20-49 5.2

50 and over 3.9

Revenues

50 thousand € 31

50-250 thousand € 26.8

250-500 thousand € 10.3

500-1m € 8.4

1m € and over 16.5

*Multiple answers are allowed.

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Table 2 – Ordinal regression

Note: *= .10, **= .05, *** = .01 significance levels.

31