Female Solo-Entrepreneurs : Coping strategies for handling the challenges and double burden of business and private life : Looking at the real life of female solo-entrepreneurs in Carinthia
| Autor: | Stossier, Theresa |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: | |
| Popis: | Austria’s economy is characterized through small and medium sized enterprises. Solo entre-preneurs 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. Data from 2019 showed that nearly 60 percent (318,800 companies) of all companies in Austria are established and run by one person, who is not entitled to permanent employees. According to the Carinthian Chamber of economy in Carinthia, Austria’s most south federal state, nearly 20,000 solo self-employed accounted for 58 percent of the economy in 2019. Represented by 42 percent (52% with personal care workers) nearly half of them were female solo entrepreneurs. 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 master thesis 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 em-beddedness and the contextual framework which supports the importance of numerous influ-ences on different levels placed on the entrepreneur. In addition, the 5M framework presented by Brush, De Bruin and Welter in 2009 was part of the theoretical basis. This master thesis represents a primary research that evaluates self-collected data sets. It is an exploratory, quantitative data analysis, including descriptive and inferential statistics. For the empirical part a primary research was conducted with Carinthian solo entrepreneurs. Therefore, an online survey was developed and carried out between end of June and beginning of November 2020. Participation was voluntarily, non-subsidized and without compensation. The sample was ap-proached twice by the Carinthian Chamber of Economy. This is caused by Austria’s mandatory membership deriving from the Austrian Trade Regulation Act. It was found that socially constructed and ascribed gender roles and norms are prevailing and especially the family context was considered an enabling and restraining element for Carinthi-an solo entrepreneurs. Female solo entrepreneurs were mainly founding their business after their first child was born. For female participants the greatest support was found in the core family with their partner, mother, and in-laws. It was highlighted that childcare and household related support was the most important for solo entrepreneurs. Besides the needed change in breaking up gendered role images, behaviors and performanc-es and allowing women to enter the “public sphere”, it has become time for men to enter the “private sphere” and take over greater responsibilities in caring. Therefore, changes must oc-cur on institutional level, allowing women to partake in workforce to a greater extend. With closing the overall gender pay gap and allowing women to become the family’s breadwinner, men may become more available for time-inflexible childcare and therefore more involved in caring for the family. Consequently, as a basis it must become normal for women to be re-spected as the main earner besides becoming normal for men to be respected as carers. Theresa Stossier Masterarbeit Universität Klagenfurt 2021 Text teilweise in deutscher Sprache |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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