Thursday, March 1, 2012

Fielding graduate Kathie L. Court presents research poster at Fielding's Winter Session 2012

Mapping the Economic Contribution of Women Entrepreneurs -- Kathie L. Court, Ph.D., Alumna, School of Human & Organization Development (2011)

The purpose of this research was to discover and describe aspects of one group of women entrepreneurs, their economic contribution, and how their social networks may have influenced that contribution. The research participants were women who had graduated from a Microenterprise Assistance Program (MEP). There was no differentiation among women by age, race, or ethnicity.

This study was designed using an interdisciplinary approach. The theoretical landscape that underpins this research includes economic geography, women entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurship. This exploratory data analysis generated questions for future research. This research provided a geographic representation of the dispersion and volume of the self-reported business expenses of women entrepreneurs located in one geographic area.

These investigations revealed that this group of women entrepreneurs had a high business survival rate. Those women entrepreneurs whose businesses were in the second through seventh years of operation engaged in additional employment. Of those who initially established their businesses as nonemployer, many had expanded to employer businesses at the time of the research. These women were not influenced by their social networks when they selected suppliers for their businesses. In addition, this research developed and examined the viability of an assessment tool that maps the business payments made by entrepreneurs.

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