Clearing the Hurdles: Women Building High-Growth Businesses

CHAPTER 7•GROWTH ORIENTATION AND STRATEGIES 151

women are less capable of running businesses than men. When women

wish to grow a company, especially in technology or manufacturing, the

lack of examples of women as senior executive leaders creates the per-

ception that these women are pioneers and less competent as leaders of

ventures. Because women have succeeded in perpetuating small service

and retail businesses, even dominating some business types (e.g., real

estate, beauty supply, clothing boutiques) its assumed women prefer to

and are just better at running small companies.

The tradition of role socialization and occupational segregation

results in generalizations about women that just do not fully apply. Not

only does this make it harder for women ...