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Essay on Women in International Business
Nurturing an individual's natural spirit of entrepreneurship is a powerful key to economic development. Small and medium-sized enterprises provide the bulk of employment for most economies, advanced or not. Supporting businesses with strong associations can strengthen the structural adjustment reforms that are part of the current international wave of decentralization, which is grounded in the belief that promoting private businesses is key to growth.
Capital-generating businesses provide a satisfactory living for their owners and are even creating new jobs in their communities throughout the world. How? New businesses in developed, developing, and transition economies are passing the survival phase, moving toward the thriving stage, and growing big enough to hire more employees, expand products and services and venture into the international arena. Contributing significantly to global economic growth through generation of new enterprises are women-owned businesses.
Assets that women bring to the global market are varied and multiple. A considerable body of research has explored how women are at the center of relationships that include family, community and business. In other words, when a woman starts or acquires her own business, in her view she is not creating a separate economic entity. Rather she is "integrating" a new global system of business-related relationships by bringing the assets of intuition, instinct, sensitivity and values together simultaneously. Research conducted by Moore and Buttner (1997), Helgesen (1990, 1995) and the OCED (1998) indicates that the global market responds well to qualities women entrepreneurs bring to the international playing field.
These characteristics include their proficiency in building and maintaining long-term relationships and networks, effective communication skills, sensitivity to cultural differences and to the importance of appropriate behavior, organizational abilities, and non-threatening, non-aggressive behavior.Barriers, some real, some perceived and some self-imposed, confront women entrepreneurs. In the area of international business obstacles include limited international business experience, inadequate business education and lack of access to international networks.....
