An examination of entrepreneurial motives and their influence on the way rural women small...

Many rural women are having difficulty finding work opportunities that suit personal needs such as greater career fulfillment and the flexibility to earn money within the constraints of family obligations (Coates, Jarratt, & Mahaffie, 1991; Goffee & Scase, 1985; Kalleberg & Leicht, 1991; Kelly, 1988; Loscocco & Leicht, 1993; Tigges & Green, 1994; Zeller, King, Byrd, DeGeorge, & Birnbaum, 1994). Large numbers of women are solving this problem by going into business for themselves (National Foundation for Women Business Owners [NFWBO], 1998b). Women's work experiences before becoming entrepreneurs may affect not only their motives in starting a venture, but their approach to running the venture. A particular case in point is the female entrepreneur's approach to managing employees. It may well be that their own experiences in the workplace lead female entrepreneurs to be more sympathetic to employees' needs in such areas as balancing work and family (Mallory, 1996; NFWBO, 1998b). If this is the case, these women may provide work opportunities that fulfill some employees' needs better than large employers or entrepreneurial ventures led by males.

The purpose of the current study is to determine if, and in what way, rural women entrepreneurs' management styles are influenced by their motives for starting businesses. The research is based on projection theory (Cohen et al., 1996; Feldman, 1992), which, in this context, posits that entrepreneurs will offer their employees job characteristics consistent with those that the proprietors themselves had desired before starting their businesses. Results are reported of a qualitative quasi-deductive study conducted with a convenience sample of rurally based female entrepreneurs. Implications are drawn for theory and practice.

Characterizing Women Entrepreneurs/Small Business Owners

Women small business owners are becoming an increasingly important part of the American economy. The number of women-owned businesses increased 103% (NFWBO, 1999) between 1987 and 1999. There are now over nine million women-owned businesses, representing more than one third of all companies in the United States, and accounting for $3.6 trillion in sales (NFWBO, 1999). The number of women going into business for themselves is also rising dramatically as illustrated by the fact that the number of women entrepreneurs "is increasing six times faster than the number of self-employed men" (Small Business Administration [SBA], 1995b, p. 67). According to estimates by the SBA (1998), approximately 4.7 million women will be self-employed by 2005. Although it is a trend that has only occurred in the last decade, this growth seems likely to continue in view of the fact that 64% of women aged 18-34 and 46% of women aged 35-55 want to become entrepreneurs (SBA, 1995a). These facts may indicate that many women's needs are not being fulfilled by traditional work opportunities. Hence, they are seeking alternative employment.

In conjunction with the growth in women-owned businesses, more and more people are being employed by women entrepreneurs. More than 27.5 million people are now employed by women, an increase of 320% from 1987. Approximately 26% of the labor force in the United States worked for women-owned businesses in 1996 (NFWBO, 1996). Women workers are particularly affected by these entrepreneurs because 35% of women-owned companies report that 75% or more of their employees are female. This proportion drops to less than 24% in firms owned by non-minority males (United States Census Bureau, 1997).

Studies on the ways women run their businesses have indicated that women business owners are creating positive changes for workers (Mallory, 1996; NFWBO, 1994a, 1994b; SBA,1995b). According to the NFWBO (1994b), women entrepreneurs are more likely than others to provide flexible work-schedules and job-sharing situations that help employees combine work and family. In this way, women small business owners may be helping their employees balance work and family responsibilities, resulting in positive effects for these people and society in general.

Women entrepreneurs offering needed job opportunities to employees could have an effect on large corporations, particularly in a tight labor market. Companies must compete with entrepreneurs not only for customers, but also for human resources. According to Cetron et al. (1988), "Job security and high pay are not the motivators they once were" (p. 35). Companies that offer needed flexibility and recognize the importance of employees' families may be better able to hire and keep valuable skilled workers (Coates et al., 1990; Richman, 1994; Mallory, 1996). If women are sensitized by their own experiences in trying to find suitable employment, they may provide work opportunities that better fulfill their employees' needs and obtain a hiring advantage over other companies (Mallory, 1996; NFWBO, 1994b; 1998b).

Entrepreneurial Motives

There are many reasons rural women start businesses. Some women are "pushed" by negative circumstances, while other are "pulled" by positive opportunities (Tigges & Green, 1994; Wilkins, 1987). Current research identifies greater career advancement, increased economic rewards, and more freedom and flexibility as possible reasons for entrepreneurship (coffee & Scase, 1985; Kalleberg, & Leicht, 1991; Loscocco & Leicht, 1993; Morrison et al., 1992; NFWBO, 1998a, 1998b; Tigges & Green, 1994; Wilkens, 1987; Zeller et al., 1994). The decision to become an entrepreneur is often the product of a number of circumstantial factors coming together (coffee & Scase, 1985; Wilkens, 1987). Farmer (1985), as cited in DiBenedetto and Tittle (1990), highlighted the importance of context in women's work decisions by stating that "career development choices are made in the context of choices or preferences for work, parental, and partner roles, because women's preferences may be influenced by their perceptions of what men want" (p. 42). Referring to the women business owners in her study, Wilkins stated, "Regardless of their background, all the women believed that business enterprise was a natural outgrowth of their particular set of circumstances" (p. 13). According to the NFWBO (1998b), these life experiences may in some way influence the management styles of women entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship provides an additional work alternative when job opportunities are unavailable or do not fulfill all of a person's needs (Tigges & Green, 1994). A major reason women start their own businesses is to gain accessibility and flexibility that are not provided by jobs currently available (NFWBO, 1998a). Many people, particularly those in rural areas, could work but are limited by location, physical difficulty in commuting to a work site, or personal and family situations (Coates et al., 1991; Tigges & Green, 1994). Traditional work schedules are inconvenient, if not impossible, for approximately one third of workers in the United States (Nollen, as cited in Kelly, 1988, p. 28). In the NFWBO (1998a) study of women who left employers to become entrepreneurs, 51% listed the desire for more flexibility as their primary motive for becoming small business owners.

Women frequently need schedules that allow them to balance work and family because they are primarily responsible for domestic duties (Loscocco & Leicht, 1993). In most cases, a woman is still expected to take care of the home and children even if she has a full-time job (Aryee, 1992; DiBenedetto & Tittle, 1990; Lorber, 1993; Loscocco et al., 1991). A study by Loscocco and Leicht (1993) showed that although women and men had similar commitments to business, women devoted an average of 16.53 hours per week to domestic work while men only contributed 9.12 hours. Juggling jobs and families can result in a work-family conflict that can decrease psychological well being (Greenberger & O'Neil, 1993). Elizur (1994) found that because of this need to balance work and family, women were more concerned with convenient hours than were men. For women in rural areas, this problem of finding jobs that provide enough flexibility to fulfill family responsibilities could be more pronounced because there are likely to be fewer day care providers and employment opportunities (Tigges & Green, 1994).

Projection Theory

The field of psychology may offer some insight into the way women treat their employees and why. Projection theory is based on the concept that people provide order to events consistent with their own "needs, fears, desires, impulses, conflicts, and ways of perceiving and responding" (Cohen et al., 1996, p. 424). Unconscious and conscious beliefs may affect how people see the world. According to proponents of projective techniques, the way subjects talk about other people is indicative of their own personalities. This is closely related to the assumed similarity bias, which is the tendency for people to believe that others, even strangers, are similar to themselves, with the same wants, needs, and fears (Feldman, 1992, p. 502), and to projection, a self-defense mechanism "in which people attribute their own inadequacies or faults to someone else" (Glossary p.17). In this study, the term projection theory is used to indicate the tendency for an entrepreneur to offer employees work situations consistent with the business owner's desires and motives. An example of this is when a woman, who started her business in order to gain the flexibility necessary to better balance work and family, offers her employees flexible work schedules so they, too, can be available for their families.

Support for projection theory comes from researchers who contend that, compared to men, women business owners are more aware of and more sympathetic toward the problems other women face in balancing work and family obligations (coffee & Scase, 1985; Mallory, 1996). For instance, women who understand the needs of parents are likely to be more supportive of flex-time, job-sharing, and other programs that permit parents to more easily care for their children (Coates et al., 1991). A study by the NFWBO (1998b) found that women business owners considered their previous work experiences when deciding how to manage their companies. Not only were issues such as flexibility and respect important factors in women entrepreneurs' decisions to start businesses, but also "the lack or mistreatment of these values helped many women business owners decide to leave their former places of employment, and many now consciously emphasize these values in their own businesses" (para. 33). In fact, more than 75% of the entrepreneurs "offered at least one policy or practice that was consciously different from one that was in place at a former place of employment" (para. 32).

In contrast, McMullen (2001) found that male accountants who broke off from an employer to start their own business recreated the same culture against which they had rebelled. He states, "Many of the founders... sought entrepreneurship as the solution for their frustration with the incubator organization. All fell victim to the `abusive parent' syndrome, creating the very environment they felt overwhelmingly compelled to flee" (p. 14).

Methodology

A case study is "the preferred strategy to use when 'how' or 'why' questions are being posed, when the investigator has little control over events, and when the focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within some real-life context" (Yin, 1994, p. 1). Considering this study's research questions, the lack of researcher control over events, and the importance of the context, it was decided that a qualitative quasi-deductive case study was appropriate.

In order to collect the necessary data regarding entrepreneurial motives and the way employees are treated, the researcher chose subjects who owned and operated microenterprises in rural Bradford County, Pennsylvania. Women entrepreneurs were eligible for the study if they employed one or more non-family members on a full-time or part-time basis, but none of the business owners chosen for the study employed more than four workers. The stipulation that employees must not be family members was included because of the likelihood, confirmed in the pilot study, that an entrepreneur would treat an employee who was a relative differently than she would treat a non-relative employee. Likewise, franchisees were also excluded because it was expected that a franchiser would have some influence on the entrepreneur's management methods. The purpose of the research was to study women who were free to manage in they way they chose, without interference from an outside company or manager. The unit of analysis was the individual entrepreneur.

Potential subjects were identified based on personal recommendations, business directories such as the membership list of the Central Bradford County Chamber of Commerce, the phone book yellow pages, and media publicity. There are many women in Bradford County who own businesses, but few of them employ people not related to them. Five women entrepreneurs were selected based on the above qualifications, their willingness to participate, and the nature of their businesses, with the researcher striving for maximum variation in occupational categories. Due to the small number of qualified candidates, the researcher selected the first five women entrepreneurs in different occupations who agreed to participate. Once an entrepreneur in a particular business was interviewed, other women in the same business were ineligible.

Several potential subjects declined to participate, indicating they were too busy to allow time for the inquiry. According to Gasse (1982), this is a common problem in research on entrepreneurs. Clearly, this was not a random sample representative of the population of women entrepreneurs. However, the researcher was not seeking to make generalizations about the population. As Miles and Huberman (1994) state in regard to studies of this type, "Sampling must be theoretically driven.... Choices of informants, episodes, and interactions are being driven by a conceptual question, not by a concern for 'representativeness' " (p. 29).

Data for this case study were collected in the summer of 1999 through the use of semi-structured interviews with the women entrepreneurs and their employees at the business sites. Visiting the businesses allowed the researcher to observe the settings, activities, and interactions between the employers and their employees (Wilkens, 1987). With the subjects' consent, all interviews were audio-taped to ensure accuracy. To further increase data validity and verify conclusions drawn from the data, the women entrepreneurs were asked to read preliminary case reports and make any necessary corrections. Most of the documents available for analysis were personal writings created for this project. The data from observations, interviews, and documents were converged to check reliability.

The qualitative quasi-deductive method of research uses pattern-matching logic to deductively compare data with the theoretical propositions derived from a literature review before collecting data through inductive techniques. Patternmatching between data, projection theory and showing how certain events lead to other events through causal networks and explanation-building are ways to increase internal validity as relationships are shown not to be random or spurious (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Yin, 1994). The data were also compared to rival hypotheses (additional information is available from the researcher).

Pattern-matching is the process of comparing several pieces of the data from a given case to theoretical propositions. Projection theory holds that a woman entrepreneur will offer her employees the job benefits and characteristics she herself wants. Her motives for starting the business are therefore related to the way she treats her employees. A crucial element of this model is the reason for the woman's behavior. If her entrepreneurial motives are consistent with the way employees are treated, these motives must be more closely examined to determine whether the match is due to projection or some other cause.

For example, a woman in the pilot study became an entrepreneur because she needed flexibility, and thus offered flexible scheduling to her employees. However, her reason for doing this was unrelated to her entrepreneurial motives. The data cannot be said to match the propositions of the projection model unless the business owner has been influenced by her experiences and personal desires to voluntarily offer her employees the same job characteristics she desired, because she believes they want the same work situation. The importance of in-depth interviews, in which the researcher can probe subjects for vital information, is clearly evident in this situation.

Scope and Limitations

The women involved in this multi-site case study were a small, narrowly-defined group of proprietors who may or may not be similar to other small business owners. Those who agreed to participate and allowed the researcher to collect data from employees may in some way be different from those who did not wish to participate. These data were indicative of the subjects' individual circumstances, which may be entirely unlike the situations of others. Furthermore, the women may not have shared deeply personal reasons for starting their businesses, and employees may have not reported their true feelings.

In using the qualitative quasi-deductive method the researcher "is striving to generalize a particular set of results to some broader theory" (Yin, 1994, p.36). Therefore, analytic generalizations "in which a previously developed theory is used as a template with which to compare the empirical results of the case study" (p.31) were appropriate. Statistical generalizations about the population were not made. Instead, data were compared to the propositions of projection theory using patternmatching logic.

Findings From the Case Studies

Three common motives for entrepreneurship were identified from the research, including the desire for flexibility in hours, greater financial reward, and independence in work. The rural women entrepreneurs in this study were at least somewhat influenced by their desires and experiences to offer their employees job characteristics consistent with their motives for starting businesses, believing these were job aspects desired by employees. Each of the women sought to create and maintain corporate cultures in which there was little interpersonal conflict among employees.

Margaret - Christian Bookstore Owner

Margaret was a 49-year-old farm wife. For a significant portion of her life, she had worked beside her husband on their dairy farm, while raising four children who also helped on the farm. In the space of one month, all four of Margaret's children left home, leaving her with the empty nest syndrome.

Environmental factors influenced Margaret to start thinking about opening a Christian bookstore. The local discount drugstore was selling pornography under the counter and people would be in there buying it, which offended Margaret, as did the "gossip magazines" being sold at the supermarket. She felt called to open a bookstore that would give the community an alternative. This desire to minister to people was her driving force and is therefore considered her motive for becoming an entrepreneur.

Projection theory can be used to describe the data from this case in that Margaret started her business to provide a Christian ministry, and allowed her employees a similar opportunity. She perceived that her employees also wanted to meet people and serve them. This is not surprising, considering that when hiring employees she looked for people who held the same religious convictions and would treasure the business like she did. She believed they did, stating, "They love it, too. That's what I look for in anybody that I would hire."

It is important to note that because Margaret intended to hire people like herself, it may have been logical to believe they desired the same work characteristics, such as providing a ministry. One employee commented, "I believe in what the store has to offer the community. I feel privileged to be able to contribute." Margaret did not work for financial reasons. In fact, she believed that she would make more money for her family if she remained home and helped her husband on the farm. Likewise, the potential for increased earnings was not one of the job benefits she offered.

Projection theory did not, however, provide a complete explanation for Margaret's management style. Gaining control of her work was not a motive, yet she allowed her three employees to be as independent as possible. Likewise, she allowed workers flexibility in hours, and even sought out flexibility in potential employees in order to accommodate the current employees, despite the fact she did not necessarily need this flexibility herself. This desire for new employees to be flexible and get along well with other employees was a significant factor in her hiring decisions. This was appreciated by the workers, two of who commented that flexible hours and supportive relationships with the other employees were important aspects of their jobs.

Noreen - Insurance Agent

Noreen had always wanted to have her own business. She stated, "I'm an independent person, and like to do things my way.... I had ideas I wanted to try and couldn't do it." She worked for ten years for another insurance agency and felt she was doing the majority of the work without receiving the financial reward. She related, "I was doing all the work of an agency owner except paying the bills. And then all of a sudden I thought, Wait a minute, if I'm going to do this, I want to make the money, too." This prompted her to purchase her own agency.

There is a close fit between the data from Noreen's case and the propositions of projection theory. Noreen wanted her own business so she could be more independent and use her knowledge and experience to earn more money. Likewise, she had made plans to allow her sole employee to make money through commissions that would be based directly on his work efforts. Consistent with her desire for independence, she let her employee know which tasks needed to be accomplished, but then allowed him to complete his work in the order he saw fit. Noreen's intention in allowing independence was shown in her comment, "They know what they have to get accomplished each day or in a week, and I just leave it up to them how they get it accomplished, so it gives them a sense of working on their own, too." She also welcomed his input, by telling him, "If you want to try something different, fine, come to me and we'll talk about it."

Noreen stated that her past experiences shaped her management style and she tried to accommodate her employee's desires "because I was an employee for many years." She believed her employee found her pleasant to work with, an impression corroborated by the employee. Her goal for the office was to create a positive atmosphere that could be perceived by visiting clients. Work schedule flexibility was not among Noreen's motives for owning a business. Likewise, she did not offer it, but was willing to make exceptions in special circumstances.

The fit between the data and the propositions of projection theory may be at least partially the result of the employee selection process. Noreen may have chosen her current employee because his needs, desires, and goals were consistent with hers. She enjoyed contact with people and also wanted any employee to be personable. Noreen enjoyed independence in her work, and looked for employees who, like herself, were able to work on their own.

Lisa - Lawyer

Lisa had always wanted to have her own law practice. She stated, "One of the reasons to be a lawyer was that you could have your own law practice." A primary reason for starting her own practice was her need for control over the business. As she remarked, "I'm a perfectionist and that's a problem ... it's very difficult to work with other people if you're a perfectionist because nothing is done to your satisfaction .... I'm not a team player. I like to own my own business and be in control."

Instead of showing her desire for control in a directive management style, Lisa allowed her three employees to be independent and control their work. Much of the work had to be completed in particular ways to comply with legal regulations, but employees were free to organize their tasks as they chose. One of Lisa's employees stated, "We sort of work at our own speed, and you come in when you feel it's necessary."

By hiring another self-proclaimed perfectionist like herself, Lisa was able maintain an office that was well-organized, but not at the expense of relationships. Allowing people to work on their own, take time off when needed, and treating them with respect, not only created a positive atmosphere, but also had practical applications as Lisa was able to retain her dedicated employees. She stated, "We have no employee turnover because I feel families come first. If there's a crisis in the family, you go. None of us watch the clock. If there's work to do, we do the work.... It's sort of an honor system and nobody abuses it." When asked why people work for her, Lisa replied, "I think part of it is flexibility, part of it is respect.... I get up and get my own files. I dial my own phone.... There's a sense of mutual respect."

Money was not Lisa's primary reason for starting her own practice, as indicated by her statement that she could earn considerably more money elsewhere. Likewise, she did not offer employees opportunities to earn additional income. Lisa was not motivated to be an entrepreneur for flexibility, but emphasized this job benefit because of her deep concern for her employees and their relationships with their families. Just as she wanted control of her own work, she offered this job aspect to her employees.

Erica - Cosmetologist

Erica's main reason for becoming a self-employed hair stylist was to make more of herself. She reported, "Because of the knowledge I had on running a business, I thought it was a waste if I didn't have my own." She also wanted to gain greater independence and flexibility, and thought, "If I got out on my own, I could pick and choose the hours."

Erica stated that her experience working for an employer caused her to be very concerned about her employees' schedules, "Because I felt so overextended where I was before I got my own business, I try to be careful.... That's the reason why, with the girls that I have, I try to be very, very careful not to overextend them."

Erica thought she could earn more money as an entrepreneur than as an employee, but that was not her driving force as she realized she would also have many expenses. Her hair stylists were permitted to work more hours if they desired greater income. They also collected extra pay in the form of tips. Erica did not, however, operate any type of incentive plan because she felt that would promote competition, rather than teamwork, among stylists. Although Erica emphasized the team concept, she allowed the stylists to work independently. She wanted every employee to help each other, but each fully-trained stylist was free to serve clients without supervision.

Creating a culture in which all four employees got along was very important to Erica. In fact, being able to control the environment was one reason for starting her own business. As she noted, "I like to set an atmosphere where people feel welcome all the time. I don't like a lot of discord. I don't like arguing. I think you have to set a certain sort of atmosphere and when you own your own business you can set that atmosphere." Failing to fit in with the current staff was enough to prevent a potential employee from being hired. Erica did not want to bring in anyone who would cause conflict and endanger the positive atmosphere. She stated, "If I can foresee [conflict] happening, I just don't bring that person in."

The data from this case match the propositions of projection theory in that Erica offered her employees those job aspects she desired because she thought they, too, needed them. The relationship between her reasons for starting her business and the way she treated her employees was shown by the fact she was consciously aware of the reasons she left her former employer. She tried to offer her employees work situations consistent with her entrepreneurial motives, based on her desires and experiences.

Janet - Realtor

Janet chose to become a real estate agent because it seemed like an occupation that would allow her to work while still having time for the children she hoped to have. As she explained, "I wanted to have children and wanted to be in what I thought would be a field where it would give me some flexibility to stay home with my children." After fifteen years of working for someone else, she started her own real estate agency because she wanted to reap greater financial rewards from her knowledge and experience. She remarked, "There's just a limit to what you can do working in another office for somebody else."

Janet believed her four employees had chosen that business for the same reasons she did and offered them flexible hours. The agents cooperatively worked together to staff the office, so that each could work the hours desired. Being able to choose the people with whom she worked was very important to Janet. She considered the option to select the people she worked with as one of the advantages of being an entrepreneur. When hiring new employees, Janet looked for personal values similar to her own.

She also wanted to be sure the potential employee would get along well with the other agents because she wanted to maintain an office where there was little interpersonal conflict and agents would work together and help each other. This was so important to her that she wanted to limit the size of her business. She explained,

I don't like a lot of conflicts. I'm not a high pressure person, so the people that work in this office don't feel a lot of pressure .... Once you get too big, there's only so much business out there and people are going to be fighting over the business that's coming in. I didn't want to get into a situation like that. The more people you have working for you, the more diverse personalities you have, and the more problems that can arise. So, I think keeping my office the size that it is has in a way offered me the opportunity to keep relationships pretty smooth between people.

In this industry, regulations mandate certain procedures that must be followed and particular formats for completing paperwork. Beyond this, however, trained agents have considerable control over their work and have a great deal of independence. Noreen stated her employees were very "self-sufficient." Their pay was based on their successes, meaning employees had the opportunity to earn more money if increased efforts created additional sales. In light of these factors, the data match the patterns dictated by projection theory.

Cross-Case Comparisons

The work situations offered by each of the women, in this study, were consistent with the entrepreneur's motives for starting a business, in that all of the women offered employees job characteristics that they themselves desired (Table 1). Margaret, however, offered employees independence and control of their work, and both Margaret and Lisa offered flexible hours even though that was not a stated entrepreneurial motive. Therefore, the data from each of the five cases generally match the propositions of projection theory (Cohen et al., 1996; Feldman, 1992), but not completely.

Noreen and Janet both started their businesses in order to reap higher financial rewards for their efforts, and likewise provided employees with the opportunity to earn additional income. Noreen did not offer extra money in the form of commissions because her employee was not yet legally qualified to write insurance policies and perform other work for which a license is required. She had, however, discussed the situation with him, and planned to offer him that opportunity as soon as he obtained his license. Noreen was helping him reach that goal, which he expected to achieve in the near future. In this study, the intention to offer her employee what she herself desired was more important than the fact that the employee was not yet able to take advantage of that benefit. These two cases exemplify literal replication as both women wanted to earn more money and offered their employees opportunities to increase their incomes.

Literal replication also occurred in the cases involving Janet and Erica. One of Janet's reasons for choosing real estate as her occupation was to gain more flexibility with her work schedule and she likewise offered her employees flexible scheduling. Erica emphasized that she provided flexibility to her workers because of her past experience and desire for control over her hours. The association between motive and management style was evident in Erica's statement, "Because I felt so overextended where I was before I got my own business, I try to be careful."

Lisa and Noreen both wanted their own businesses because they desired independence and control over their work. In these women's offices, employees were allowed to have independence in their work, another literal replication of projection theory. Due to state laws governing both of their fields, their work had to be done following certain government-mandated procedures, but employees chose the manner and order for task completion.

The women in this research project all provided their employees work situations that were basically consistent with their motives for becoming entrepreneurs. Those motivated by higher earning potential offered opportunities for employees to make more money, and those seeking flexibility and/or independence offered the same to their employees. Two women, however, allowed flexibility even though it was not a stated motive. One woman offered independence that she did not necessarily desire. This indicates that projection theory is useful for describing most of the data, but does not fully explain why these women treat their employees the way they do.

An important similarity between all the women was their focus on positive relationships. They desired to create a corporate culture in which harmony ruled, and were concerned about their employees as people with family obligations. Erica stated, "I think people sense that they don't hate their jobs here.... I like them to have good times. They have to spend time away from their families. To me, that's very valuable." She continued that "everybody has a family and a life outside of their job, so I try to help them as much as I can."

This focus on relationships also influenced hiring practices. If it was believed the new person would not fit in with the others in the organization, the potential employee was not hired. Perhaps because of this desire to reduce conflict, several of the women made a conscious efforts to hire employees similar to themselves.

Conclusions and Implications

The women in this study tended to offer employees work situations consistent with those they themselves desired. An underlying factor in this was a deep concern for other people, as suggested by gender theory (Eagly & Johnson, 1990; Gilligan, 1982; NFWBO, 1994a; Tannen, 1990; Wilkens, 1987). Each of the women was concerned about relationships to the extent that they created and maintained corporate cultures in which interpersonal conflicts among employees were minimal. Several of the women believed their desire for positive relationships was related to their sex. Noreen stated that it was a "female thing."

It is possible that this concern for people is interrelated with the entrepreneurs' motives. Projection theory suggests they base their beliefs about workers' needs on their own needs and experiences. To some extent, all the entrepreneurs offered job characteristics consistent with what were the reasons they started their businesses. This is in direct contrast to the results of McMullen's (2001) research on male accountants who established companies with cultures similar to the ones against which they had rebelled.

A contributing factor to this may have been that the women had chosen employees who appeared to be very much like themselves. Several of the women in this study reported that they attempted to hire people like themselves in terms of goals, values and personalities. The reason for this was to ensure that new employees would fit in with the other employees, thus maintaining a harmonious company culture. The result may be that employees who were similar to the entrepreneurs had the same needs and desires and were therefore content with the job characteristics offered to them. Additional research should also investigate the nature and extent of this phenomenon.

If entrepreneurs and employees have similar needs and desire the same work situations, and women entrepreneurs fulfill these work needs, women business owners may increase the number of people who wish to work for them. On a broader scale, they may create positive change for society by helping women better balance work and family obligations. However, the implications of offering job characteristics not desired by employees have yet to be examined. For example, an entrepreneur may have desired flexible hours and likewise offers this job aspect, but a given employee may not place any value on this benefit and may not wish to participate in such a work environment. Several of the women in this study declined to hire people who would not be flexible in order to maintain flexibility for current employees. In such a case, an employer would be limiting the available labor pool and may pass up a valuable worker.

In summary, the results of this research indicate that the rural women entrepreneurs chosen for this study tended to offer job characteristics consistent with their motives for starting businesses. However, independence/control over work and/or flexibility were job aspects offered by two of the women, despite the fact that these were not their motives for becoming entrepreneurs. The importance of good interpersonal relationships emerged as an overall theme. The desire for a corporate culture in which interpersonal conflict was minimized was so strong that it influenced the choice of employees.