Self-Employment as a Strategy for Dealing with the Competing Demands of Work and Family? The Importance of Family/Lifestyle Motives

The Motherhood Wage Penalty and Female Entrepreneurship

The need to resolve work–family conflict has long been considered a central motive for women’s pursuit of entrepreneurship. In this paper, we propose and empirically uncover a novel mechanism driving female entrepreneurship: reduced earnings opportunities in wage employment due to motherhood status. Combining insights from career mobility research and the motherhood penalty literature, we propose that women who become mothers will disproportionately launch a new business to reduce the motherhood penalty they would otherwise incur in wage work due to employer discrimination. We further predict that this tendency to launch a new venture will be more pronounced for women who occupy high-paying or managerial positions, given the higher opportunity cost of staying in wage work and the higher potential payoffs from entrepreneurship that accrue mothers occupying such positions. Using matched employer–employee data from Sweden that distinguish new-venture founding from self-employment, we find support for our arguments. Overall, this study sheds light on the two antecedents of female entrepreneurship and contributes to a more thorough understanding of what motivates women to pursue irregular and atypical careers, such as entrepreneurship.

Funding: This work was supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (Ewing Marion Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellowship) and the Wharton Dean’s Research Fund.

Supplemental Material: The e-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.1657 .

Empowerment of women's entrepreneurship in family business through Twitter

Purpose

The main purpose is to provide a global understanding of the role of women in entrepreneurship and family businesses, enabling the evaluation of the impact and the sentiment their role generates. To this end, empowerment and businesswomen's positioning through user-generated content (UCG) on Twitter is assessed.

Design/methodology/approach

The research is carried out from a quantitative and qualitative perspective through the evaluation of UGC from the social platform Twitter. A total of 37,852 tweets have been collected and subsequently analysed about the role of entrepreneurial women. For that purpose, a set of supervised machine learning algorithms have been developed for sentiment analysis, as a natural language processing (NLP) technique, outlining random forest as the one with the highest accuracy. Finally, social network analysis (SNA) techniques and graph theory are applied to a generated text-to-network, which enables the identification of the most relevant topics in the discussion.

Findings

The results revealed a positive relationship in the sentiment of the generated content in relation to women entrepreneurs and leaders. An increasing trend was evidenced in the number of published tweets, as well as in the identified topics, highlighting the needs and challenges faced by women in the business environment as the most widely discussed.

Research limitations/implications

The study develops both theoretical and practical implications so that the findings result in applications in academia and society. The performed analysis creates consciousness about the challenges of women in society, specifically in entrepreneurship.

Originality/value

The study contributes to further enriching the literature on women's entrepreneurship by addressing UGC via Twitter around the role of women, entrepreneurship and power positions.

Managers of micro-sized enterprises and Covid-19: impact on business operations, work-life balance and well-being

The aim of this study is to identify how managers of micro-sized enterprises experience the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on their business operations, work-life balance and well-being. Further, the study aims to make comparisons between managers of micro-sized businesses and managers of small-sized businesses. This mixed-method study is based on qualitative interviews with ten managers of micro-sized enterprises and a questionnaire answered by 95 managers of micro-sized and small-sized enterprises in regions in the north of Sweden. Managers of micro-sized enterprises reported significantly worse scores for mental well-being, job satisfaction and life satisfaction in comparison with managers of small-sized enterprises. Three themes emerged from the qualitative analysis: Changed leadership role, Impact on private life and Impact on well-being. In the interviews, the managers of micro-sized enterprises reported that the pandemic had increased their workload and forced them to mobilise strategies for enterprise survival. This study indicates that managers of micro-sized enterprises had changed their leadership role and increased their workload and number of work tasks, including supporting the employees, developing strategies for business survival and applying for governmental support. However, the managers demonstrated creativity in finding new solutions for their enterprises.

Sickness Presenteeism Among the Swedish Self-Employed During the Covid-19 Pandemic

The present study analyzed the impact of business operations, work and family circumstances, and well-being on the risk of sickness presenteeism for Swedish self-employed workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is of great importance to investigate the impact of the pandemic on the self-employed and their enterprises because they are seen as key drivers of economic growth and constitute an expanding group in many countries. Data were obtained from 845 self-employed workers by a web-based survey including questions about background information, work and family circumstances, well-being, sickness presenteeism, and questions about the pandemic. Results were that around 40% of the self-employed introduced new products, processes, and marketing methods, and just over 50% attempted to get new customers during the pandemic. Nearly half of the self-employed people reported that they lost contracts, and 22% judged the risk of bankruptcy to be quite or highly likely. Regression analyses showed that the more the self-employed reported impact on business indicators, increased work hours, a higher level of work-family conflict, and a lower level of mental well-being, the higher the risk of sickness presenteeism. The most common reasons given by the participants for sickness presenteeism during the pandemic were “nobody else can carry out my responsibilities,” “I can't afford to take sick leave” and “I enjoy my work.” Conclusions are that a critical event such as the pandemic probably adds to an already high workload for the self-employed. Impact on business operations such as developing new products/services and marketing, risk of bankruptcy and increased work hours seems to be important factors for explaining sickness presenteeism among the self-employed. Theoretical contributions from the study suggest that critical events such as the Covid-19 pandemic should be considered as an important environmental factor when studying sickness presenteeism among self-employed.

The work–family balance of British working women during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected women in unique gender-specific ways, particularly their traditional status as home managers. This study aims to draw on the role theory to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women's work–family balance during the lockdown.

Design/methodology/approach

The current COVID-19 pandemic, which has altered the ways in which we live and work, requires specific methodological tools to be understood. The authors, therefore, opted for an interpretive–constructivist and constructivist–phenomenologist approach. The dataset, thus, comprises of semi-structured interviews with 26 working women in the UK.

Findings

The findings illustrate how the COVID-19 lockdown has intensified British women's domestic workload and has, thus, caused unbridled role conflict, which has further been exacerbated by structural and interactional roles undertaken by women, especially during the lockdown. Remote working has contributed to women's role congestion and role conflict and poses severe challenges to role differentiation. Furthermore, we found that the lockdown has facilitated the rediscovery of family values and closeness, which is connected to the decline in juvenile delinquency and low crime rate that has resulted from the lockdown.

Originality/value

Through the lens of the role theory, this study concludes that the cohabitation of work and family duties within the domestic space undermines the ability to achieve work–family balance and role differentiation due to the occurrence of inter-role conflicts. This study enriches our understanding of the effect of remote working on female employees' work–family balance during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

Opting out: professional women develop reflexive agency

Purpose

While previous research on opting out has been mainly about women who leave their careers altogether, the purpose of this paper is to follow a broader definition of opting out to investigate the process and experience of women developing agency as they leave masculinist career patterns to adopt alternative career solutions.

Design/methodology/approach

Building on an interdisciplinary framework and a narrative approach, this paper analyses the opting out and in processes of women managers in Finland and the USA.

Findings

This paper demonstrates four micro-strategies that the women used to develop individual agency in their processes of opting out of masculinist career models and opting in to alternative solutions for work. These micro-strategies are redefining career success, transcending boundaries, renegotiating working conditions and keeping in touch with professional networks.

Practical implications

Organisational leaders can use the knowledge of the strategies that empower women in their opting out processes when making decisions regarding working practices. In order to retain their employees, organisations should be supportive of employees’ individual agency and their participation in developing work structures, as well as providing more opportunities for two-way blurring between work and family instead of the current one-way blurring where work spills over to family life, increasing work-family conflict.

Originality/value

This paper develops a framework to better understand women’s agency during the process of opting out of corporate careers and opting in to solutions like part-time work and self-employment, deepening the current understanding of these solutions and presenting the micro-strategies they use to develop reflexive agency.

[ARTIGO RETRATADO] CONFLITO TRABALHO-FAMÍLIA: A PRODUÇÃO CIENTÍFICA INTERNACIONAL E A AGENDA DE PESQUISA NACIONAL

RESUMO O conflito trabalho-família, resultante de demandas de difícil compatibilização, afeta cada vez mais trabalhadores, devido à intensificação dos ritmos de trabalho e ao acúmulo de papeis. Nessa perspectiva, o objetivo desta pesquisa é apresentar a produção científica internacional sobre o conflito trabalho-família por meio da análise dos polos epistemológico, teórico, morfológico e técnico (modelo quadripolar). Trata-se de uma revisão sistemática que faz o levantamento das publicações disponíveis na base de dados Scopus entre 2008 e 2018, totalizando 41 artigos. Os resultados da estatística descritiva e análise de conteúdo indicam que no polo epistemológico é definido um objetivo amplo e robusto, atingido pelo teste de hipóteses; no polo teórico, destacam-se abordagens teóricas sobre o modelo multidimensional, a teoria dos papeis, a teoria da bidirecionalidade e a teoria do enriquecimento; no polo morfológico, identifica-se a abordagem metodológica positivista para mensurar variáveis; no polo técnico, há alinhamento entre estudos de natureza quantitativa, estratégia de pesquisa survey e coleta de dados por meio de questionários. Este estudo sugere a promoção de políticas de trabalho-família em organizações, bem como de políticas públicas que forneçam infraestrutura de suporte às mulheres. Também se propõe uma agenda de pesquisa aos estudos brasileiros.

Balancing Work and Life When Self-Employed: The Role of Business Characteristics, Time Demands, and Gender Contexts

This study explores individual and contextual risk factors in relation to work interfering with private life (WIL) and private life interfering with work (LIW) among self-employed men and women across European countries. It also studies the relationship between interference (LIW and WIL) and well-being among self-employed men and women. Drawing on data from the fifth round of the European Working Conditions Survey, a sample of self-employed men and women with active businesses was extracted. After applying multilevel regressions, results show that although business characteristics are important, the most evident risk factor for WIL and LIW is time demands. Both time demands and business characteristics also seem to be important factors in relation to gender differences in level of interference. There is a relationship between well-being and both WIL and LIW, and time demands is again an important factor. Gender equality in the labor market did not relate to level of interference, nor did it affect the relationship between interference and well-being. However, in gender-separated analyses, LIW and LIW interacted with gender equality in the labor market in different ways for women’s and men’s well-being. In conclusion, gender relations are important in interference and how interference relates to well-being.

From social support to capabilities for the work–life balance of independent professionals

This qualitative study aims to explain how social support enables independent professionals to achieve work–life balance. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 50 independent professionals in the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. The interview data were analyzed from a capability approach, from which work–life balance is understood in terms of capabilities. The most important sources of social support for independent professionals appeared to be their partner, family, as well as work and nonwork-related friends who were able to provide emotional and instrumental support. However, the extent to which social support can be converted into capabilities is influenced by individual (gender and cohabitation), institutional (the ease of doing business and formal childcare), and societal factors (financial hardship and familialism). The cross-national comparison shows that the institutional and societal context may hinder or reinforce social support for work–life balance, resulting in different experiences across countries.