U of M News Wire
December 13, 2007
University of Minnesota study examines how men and women manage family businesses differently
By Deane Morrison
U of M News Wire
If you’re a family business owner, how you run that business may well depend on whether your baby blanket was pink or blue.
Men and women differ in how they run family businesses, and understanding those differences is one key to helping both business and family life thrive, says Sharon Danes, a family social science professor and lead author of a recent study on male-female management styles published in the Journal of Business Research.
“A lot of people think profit and growth are the end-all and be-all of running a business," she says. But while businesses run by women tend to earn less revenue than those run by men, this “underperformance” may reflect a difference in goals, not ability, and studies that look only at business variables like the bottom line will likely miss the reasons for the performance gap.
That’s why Danes, with Kathryn Stafford of Ohio State University and Johnben Teik-Cheok Loy of the University of Minnesota, zeroed in on the intersection between families and businesses, using data from 301 family businesses in the National Family Business Survey, taken in 1997 and 2000.
Money can’t buy me contentment
Their findings supported an idea called the “contentment hypothesis,” which states that some business owners seek contentment from their lives as a whole, not just from getting the fastest growth and highest profit from the enterprise.
“Women, more than men, are willing, or only want, to grow a business to a level that they can manage with all the other responsibilities they have in their life,” says Danes. “They want to balance work and family. As a result, they manage their businesses differently.”
“What women would do is to have family members there helping them out, unpaid, if business is hectic. ... But men tend to keep family and business separate. They wouldn't have unpaid family members working unless the business isn’t doing well financially and it's absolutely necessary.”
The case of a business consultant brought in to help one family business illustrates why it’s important to recognize how management practices and changes in them affect men and women differently.
The consultant noted that a husband and wife worked side by side, discussing their young children right along with their business. The consultant advised them to move to well-separated offices to discourage them from getting together for any reason besides talking business.
Two years later the couple was on the brink of divorce. The business had grown, but both partners were spending less time with the family. It was much harder on the woman, who couldn’t talk to her husband about family and children issues during work hours but still had to take care of the children. As bookkeeper for the business, she had to squeeze in that work late at night, after the kids were in bed.
“When you have both a male and a female involved, you need to look at the impact of management practices and changes in those practices on both partners,” Danes says.
A new consultant figured out the problem and had the couple move back into the same office. From there, they rebuilt their relationship.
Pros and cons of free time
In the study, three general findings leapt from the data. First, in a female-owned business, family members tend to donate their time to the business when revenues are booming; but in a male-owned operation, they are more likely to work for free when revenue is down.
“What women would do is to have family members there helping them out, unpaid, if business is hectic,” says Danes. “It’s a way to dovetail work and family and manage both. But men tend to keep family and business separate. They wouldn’t have unpaid family members working unless the business isn't doing well financially and it's absolutely necessary.”
Counting money, or sheep?
Second, men are more likely to lose sleep when their businesses are hurting, whereas women sleep less when times are good. Part of the reason could be that women are more likely to work in retail, where periodic marketing efforts and seasonal demands for products lead to a flood of orders.
“Let’s say you got a whole bunch of orders at once in response to a new marketing effort,” says Danes. “In that case, women would more likely lose sleep in order to [spend more hours working] to make the business succeed. But men would more likely hire out.”
If business is brisk, men are better able to put more time into their businesses by taking hours away from time with family, rather than dipping into sleep hours, she adds. Supporting this behavior is the societal expectation that women, not men, are the primary caretakers of children. Men, says Danes, probably sleep less only as a last resort, when the business is in trouble financially.
Managing just fine
In the third finding, female business owners saw a bigger monetary return on extra time spent managing their staffs. Such efforts lead to employees who know what to do with customers, how to make decisions, and which ones they can make themselves without asking the boss, all important to customer satisfaction.
“Overall, lots of research shows women are much more relationship-oriented,” says Danes. “Perhaps a corollary is that they pay more attention to people relations in business, which would involve personnel management.” Another factor may be the tendency of female owners to be in retail, which depends on large numbers of employee-customer interactions going well.
In her next project, Danes is investigating the impact of spousal support on business startups to learn whether male or female business owners get more such support and its impact on the survival and success of the fledgling businesses.
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Experts say oil prices will have greatest impact on Midwest renewable fuels development
By Luisa Badaracco
U of M News Wire
The University of Minnesota has discovered a silver lining in the increasing cost of oil.
Leading Midwest experts in research, government, business and nonprofit sectors who attended the university's E3 conference last month were surveyed on what they think will promote sustainable energy research within their geographic domain. Forty percent of the respondents said the cost of oil is the primary driver.
In other words, the majority believes rising oil costs will jump start renewable fuels and electricity research more than any other potential factor. Respondents were almost evenly split on two additional drivers: Government mandates (36 percent) and profitability of alternative/renewable energy production (35 percent). Rounding out the data, 29 percent think government incentives and public demand for renewable energy sources will be the main driver.
Of the 400-plus people who attended E3, approximately 43 percent completed the survey. Those surveyed were asked to select up to three factors from a list of several possibilities. The percentages above reflect which factors they selected the most.
"Once again, we're finding that economics will be a major driver of future developments in the renewable energy sector," said Richard Hemmingsen, director of the University of Minnesota's Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment (IREE), the host of the conference. "With all the bad news recently about rising oil prices, maybe we finally have something to look forward to."
The survey results also showed that nearly one-quarter of respondents think cellulosic biofuels will be the next big development in sustainable energy, while an additional 16 percent believe that solar technology has the most potential. One in ten think sustainable energy will become more efficient to produce, and 8 percent believe that algae-to-energy has the most potential for reducing fossil fuel consumption.
E3 2007, the Midwest's premier energy, economic and environmental conference, was held Nov. 27 at the U's Coffman Union. IREE is a public/private partnership designed to promote sustainable energy in Minnesota. Since its inception in 2003, IREE has supported 135 renewable energy projects.
The on-site survey was conducted by Millennium Research, Inc.,a marketing research and consulting company that specializes in agriculture and other outdoor industries.
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Growing Concerns
A parenting question-and-answer column with Dr. Martha Erickson of the University of Minnesota
Question: Last winter our teenage son died and now we’re sadly facing the first Christmas without him. We have two other children and we’re grappling with how to help them find some pleasure in this holiday season without denying the fact that it’s going to be very hard. We welcome your suggestions of things we can do -- and things to look out for.
Answer: The holiday season is filled with images of happy families gathered around the fireplace, singing songs and making wonderful memories together. For most families it is hard to measure up to that perfect image; but for families who have experienced a recent loss, especially one as profound as the death of a child, the gap between the “greeting card” image and reality can be huge.
Although each family’s experience is unique, there are some common issues that often come up around holidays following a loss. Many families find that the familiar holiday rituals evoke strong memories that, as one parent told me, “peel away the scab” of the loss. Feeling so vulnerable themselves, family members sometimes become protective of each other -- dancing around the feelings, uncertain of how to behave for fear of triggering a flood of emotion. Some family members find that when they do begin to have fun -- perhaps for a moment almost forgetting the lost loved one -- they suddenly feel guilty for enjoying themselves. Another common response is to idealize the deceased family member, remembering only how wonderful he or she was and forgetting the loved one’s human faults. Although this is a natural reaction, surviving family members may feel left out or less important than the one who died. This is especially difficult for surviving siblings when a child dies.
There are some steps you can take to help you and your children cope and even find some joy in the holiday season. You’ve already taken the first step just by thinking about this in advance and focusing on the needs and feelings of your children. Based on what I’ve learned from other families in similar circumstances, here’s what I would suggest:
• Within your family, talk openly about your feelings before the holiday. Often it’s a relief to all family members just to say out loud that this is really a challenging time.
• Decide together what you want to repeat from past holiday rituals and what you would like to do differently this year. Note that some families decide to do everything differently, perhaps even going away to a new place that doesn’t evoke so many memories. Some families find comfort in doing what they’ve always done, and other families do some of both. The important thing is that you and your family figure out what works best for you.
• Set aside some focused time for remembering together the experiences you shared with your son. Sometimes designating a special memorial time can free up the family for a deeper appreciation of the holiday and keep the sad feelings from being so pervasive.
• As you already are, remember to focus on the surviving family members, especially your other two children. They are still here to be cherished and celebrated. And of course they need special attention as they deal with their own loss.
• Finally, to keep up your own strength, seek and accept extra support from friends. I hope you have at least one friend with whom you can let down your guard and pour your heart out. And, if you haven’t already done so, this would be a good time to seek out a peer support group specifically for parents who have lost children. For example, many communities have chapters of “Compassionate Friends.” If not, contact your clergy or a community mental health center for a recommendation. As many parents have told me, there is no support like that from other parents who are on this same journey.
Dr. Erickson is a senior fellow and director of the Harris Programs in the Center for Early Childhood Education at the University of Minnesota
Want to hear more parenting advice?
Dr. Erickson and her daughter can be heard every Sunday, from 2 - 4 p.m., on “Good Enough Moms,” on FM107.1 radio in the Twin Cities or via Webcast at www.FM1071.com
