Entrepreneurs

Women Mean Business
Study: Many start companies to avoid 'glass ceiling'

A significant number of women business owners take the risky step of starting businesses because they run into a "ceiling" or feel unchallenged in their work, a new study shows.

Women coming from the corporate world are particularly frustrated, with many saying their employers didn't take them seriously or value them, the study reported. Nearly 60 percent of women who had come from corporations said nothing would induce them to return, including more money or flexibility.

The research casts light on reasons for the explosive growth in the country's 8 million women-owned businesses, which now account for one-third of U.S. firms. Women-owned businesses, which are being created at twice the rate of all businesses.

"Frustration with the work environment has pushed a significant number of women into entrepeneurship," said Sheila Wellington, president of Catalyst, one group involved in the study. "They leave to get more flexibilty and because they feel their advancement opportunities are not valid."

The study was based on September phone surveys of 800 business owners.

As might be expected, nearly half of women business owners started their companies because they had a winning business idea or they wanted to turn their skills into a business.

But 16 percent of all women business owners cited a "glass ceiling" — an invisible barrier to advancement — as a significant motivation for become entrepreneurs, while 11 percent of female owners said they hadn't been challenged in past careers.

Such frustartions were particularly evident in the 60 percent of women surveyed who had come from the private sector. Nearly a third of these women cited "glass ceilings" as a prime reason they started a business.

Helen Hughes, a Houston-based entrepreneur since 1989, said she left the corporate world because she didn't feel that she would ever get far at the company where she worked.

"I felt like the politics were too much against me," said Hodges, who now owns Seperation Systems consultants, a small hazardous waste disposal firm. "If you want to get where you want to go, do it the way that works."

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