Austria’s economy is characterized through small and medium sized enterprises. Solo entrepreneurs are considered a special form within SMEs and contribute a major share to Austrian’s economy besides being Austria’s most popular legal form of organization within the micro firms. In 2020 every second of Carinthia’s start-up businesses was established by a female entrepreneur. According to an entrepreneurship study presented by Volksbank in 2019, nearly half of all female entrepreneurs lived with children and juveniles. Two-thirds of women said they were solely responsible for family, childcare, and household and 71 percent of those female entrepreneurs specified that those circumstances caused difficulties for them. This book investigated Carinthian female solo entrepreneurs and aims to find out how these hard-working women manage their business and private life while contributing to such great extent to the (federal) state’s economy. The conceptual foundations were found in embeddedness and the contextual framework which supports the importance of numerous influences on different levels placed on the entrepreneur. The empirical section represents a primary research that evaluates self-collected data sets of Carinthian solo-entrepreneurs.
Author(s): Theresa Stossier
Series: BestMasters
Publisher: Springer VS
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 192
City: Wiesbaden
Preface
Abstract
Contents
Abbreviations and Symbols
List of Figures
1 Introduction
2 Conceptual Framework: Definitions and Overview of Female Entrepreneurship
2.1 Women and Self-determination = Female Empowerment?
2.1.1 How Did Women get where they are Today?
2.1.2 The Evolution of Women’s Rights in Austria
2.1.3 Summary on Women and Self-Determination = Female Empowerment?
2.2 What is State of the Art in Research Today?
2.2.1 Is there a Difference Between Gender and Sex?
2.2.2 Context is Being Considered
2.2.3 The 5M Framework
2.2.4 Push and Pull Entrepreneurs and Their Ability of Earning a Living
2.2.5 Education and Role Models
2.2.6 Family Context
2.2.7 Summary for State of the Art in Female Entrepreneurship Research
2.3 Different Types of Context Influencing Gender Perceptions
2.3.1 Social Norms and Gender Roles: Institutional Context on Macro Level
2.3.2 Cultural and Community: Institutional Context on Meso Level
2.3.3 Family and Household: Social Context and Micro Level
2.3.4 Summary on Different Types of Context Placing Influences on Gender Perceptions
2.4 Same or Different: What is Female Entrepreneurship?
2.4.1 Views on Entrepreneurship and it’s Definitions
2.4.2 Motivations for Becoming an Entrepreneur: Push, Pull and the Influence of Knowledge
2.4.3 Sectorial Segregation Within Entrepreneurship and Differences Between Female and Male Entrepreneurs
2.4.4 The Influence of Unpaid Domestic Work for Female Entrepreneurs
2.4.5 Summary in Female Entrepreneurship: Same or Different?
3 Gendered Enterprises and Female Business: Puzzles of Heterogeneity
3.1 SMEs, One-(Wo)Man-firms and Firms of Hybridity: Looking at a Landscape of Diversity
3.1.1 One-person Businesses
3.1.2 Hybrid Entrepreneurs
3.2 Female Entrepreneurship and Carinthia
3.3 Summary on Gendered Enterprises and Female Businesses
4 Empirical Analysis of (female) Solo Entrepreneurs: The Case of a South Austrian Region
4.1 Research Design
4.2 Structure and Content of the Questionnaire
4.3 Procedure of Getting Participants
4.4 The Sample
4.5 Statistical Methods
5 Results and Findings
5.1 Getting to know the Participants
5.1.1 Personal Information
5.1.2 The Business
5.2 Organizing Business Work and Workload
5.2.1 Regulated Opening Hours
5.2.2 Regulated Workdays
5.2.3 Working on Weekends and Public Holidays
5.2.4 Average weekly workdays
5.2.5 Actual Weekly Workload—How many hours do solo-self-employed work?
5.2.6 Desired Weekly Workload
5.2.7 Best Reasons for Desired Weekly Workload
5.2.8 Workplaces
5.2.9 Summary on Participants’ Business Organization
5.3 Inabilities to Work—What Now?
5.3.1 Do solo Self-employed Ever Get Sick?
5.3.2 What about Childcare Obligations?
5.3.3 Maternity, Paternity, or Parental Leave
5.3.4 Summary of Different Reasons for Inability to Work
5.4 Receiving Support from Others in Business and Private Matters
5.4.1 Support & Business: Receiving Help in the Business
5.4.2 Support & Family: Receiving Help to Better Concentrate on the Business
5.4.3 Childcare and Household
5.4.4 Summary of Receiving Support from Others in Business and Private Matters
5.5 Time Management and Vacation
5.5.1 Work-Life-Balance
5.5.2 Does your Self-employment Prevent you from Spending more time with Friends, Family or for Yourself?
5.5.3 Vacation
5.5.4 Summary on Time Management and Vacation
5.6 Hybridity: Running an Own Business and Being Employed at Once
5.6.1 Are you a “Hybrid”?
5.6.2 Top Three Motivations to be “Hybrid”
5.6.3 Weekly Workload in Employment
5.6.4 Dependency on Income from Employment
5.6.5 Summary on Hybridity
5.7 Finance and Earnings
5.7.1 Breadwinner
5.7.2 Average Annual Net Income from Self-employment Before Covid-19
5.7.3 Satisfaction with Income from Self-employment
5.7.4 Summary for Finances and Earnings
5.8 Satisfaction, Advising Others and Being Self-employed
5.8.1 Satisfaction with Entrepreneurial Career
5.8.2 Would you Pursue an Entrepreneurial Career Again?
5.8.3 Could you See Yourself in Employment Again?
5.8.4 Advising Others to Start a Business as Solo Entrepreneur
5.8.5 Summary for Satisfaction, Advising Others and Being Self-employed
5.9 Who was the Sample’s Average Female Carinthian solo Entrepreneur?
6 What Lessons did we Learn?
6.1 Discussion
6.2 Conclusion and Recommendations
References
