"FEMALE MANAGERS AND ENTREPRENEURS: BARRIERS AND OPPORTUNITIES. SOME EVIDENCES FROM AN EMPIRICAL RESEARCH"

This paper presents the most relevant findings o fan empirical research that covers 50 italian small firms held or managed by women. The research attempts to evaluate the conditions that may encourage or discourage the professional growth and the development of women’s enterprises. While some barriers also impact men, they hold specific connotations for women. This may occur, for instance, for the need of information, the difficulty to reach or to build powerful networks in the local and institutional community, and the poverty time, in relation to the deficiency of territorial and social services “women friendly”. In particular, our findings point out that female entrepreneurs and managers give high importance to closeness to people and information; sharing of information and people reciprocal knowledge are good means for identifying business and career opportunities. We also observe that female entrepreneurs and managers suffer for the gap of female success experiences. Otherwise, female attitude to manage human relations with internal and external stakeholders could arise the sense of belongings to a community and reinforce their identification. As a consequence of this, we suggest the importance to promote female collaboration for supporting female entrepreneurs and managers to remove some barriers and difficulties.