Women Owners: Honorary Men?

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the five independent female business owners who between them are the principal proprietors of four businesses. Two of the women were sisters and owned one of the businesses; the other three are single proprietors. These businesses are distributed across categories of ‘new’ and ‘old’ wealth and are in a range of economic sectors including plastics manufacturing, organic cosmetics, livery and estate ownership, combined with corporate entertainment. In contrast to the mainstream literature, the importance of Goffee and Scase (1985) and Allen and Truman’s (1991) pathbreaking work is that they begin to address the issue of women in business. However, both studies convey the sense in which female businesses are separate and distinguishable from mainstream (male) enterprise. Goffee and Scase (1985) report that women in business operate somewhat differently from their male counterparts, whilst Allen and Truman (1991) suggest that female enterprise is predominantly in the service sector. In contrast to these findings, it is argued that similarity as opposed to difference with male-headed business describes female-owned enterprise in terms of business type and managerial approach.