Garcia-Hjarles Villanueva, Galia Rocio
(2009)
Women owners of small or medium companies and their stakeholder relationship in Nottingham: an exploratory research.
[Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)]
(Unpublished)
Abstract
In Europe, for the last twenty years, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have become an important engine of the economy (Jenkins, 2004). SMEs are no longer left as outsiders’ organizations and their impacts in society as a group can be enormous. Now they are spaces for innovation, creativity, employment, job opportunities and efficiency (Spence and Rutherfoord, 2003). On the other hand, the SMEs community is very heterogeneous, and their performance is influenced by different factors such as size, sector, financial resources, owner gender, and stakeholders.
Beside the importance of the SMEs in general, it is important to highlight the persistently growing number of women involved in their own business and the increasing academic literature referred to it (Catley and Hamilton, 1998; Birley, 1989). Indeed, Mukhtar (1998) stated that women will not stop entering into their own independent business and their entrepreneurships ventures will become as respectable and acceptable enterprises as any other
else (Marlow et al. 2009). Therefore, this new women´s business venture needs to be researched and analyzed in order to construct a theoretical framework and look for successful replicable practices, essentially those connected with their social and economic environment
relationships that secure their business long-term existence (Jenkins, 2006).
In light of the above, the main purpose of this dissertation is to explore and learn about SMEs,
focusing on the meaning, advantages and development of practices applied by women owners in their stakeholder relationships. In order to achieve this objective two qualitative techniques are applied. First, the study will review the existent literature about SMEs and womenowners
in relation with stakeholders and their management. Second, the study with the use of content analysis will explore two open questionnaire answered by women owners of SMEs
based in Nottingham city. Finally, the present dissertation intends to contribute towards a better understanding of the stakeholder relationship among women owners.
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