Entrepreneurship of women – multiplication of experience and results from NOW-projects

Documentation of the final colloquium of the LEONARDO da Vinci - project

Workshop 3

"Business foundations of women – experience and ideas"

Chairmanship: Marja-Leena Haataja, University Oulu Angelo Troia, Ecogestioni Palermo Moderation: Dr. Andrea Hommel, b&s ltd. Leipzig

Main aim of the workshop was to discuss business foundations of women in view of made experience, obtained problems and deduced needed actions. These main points were went through by using examples from Finland, Italy and Germany.

Chairwoman Marja-Leena Haataja presented the foundation of a women´s co-operative in the region Kainuu in her opening speech. This foundation took place within the scope of the Finish NOW-project (1996-1998) that belonged to the BERTA-co-operation. She detailed spoke about the tasks that were realised in the preparation period of the foundation. This tasks contained the imparting of entrepreneurial knowledge up to an intensive discussion about values. The project helped f.e. to break open stereotype gender separations in the field of employment as well as in education, she told. Further more the project initiated a mutual learning process of the women and helped to promote women´s awareness concerning women´s specific problems. She pointed out the increasing self-confidence of the women, their ability to decide and the confidence in the made entrepreneurial decision and the building up of a network in the course of the project.

She characterised the information technologies as one of the branches of the region Kainuu that mostly are pointing to the future. That´s why the winning of women as entrepreneurs in this branch is one of the most important tasks for future to secure a long-term stable economic perspective for women of this region and to involve them into the process of technological development. The leading of girls and young women to this branch will become an urgent demand for acting.

The discussion was opened by a speech of Angelo Troia from Ecogestioni. He outlined the difficult situation of female business starters at Sicily. There are especially traditional values concerning the role of women and lacking experience in the field of female business foundations that make working in this field very difficult. But the Italian NOW-project was able to go important steps to analyse the whole situation and to find out needed actions.

Experience, problems and needed actions concerning business foundations by women were spoken about in the following discussion. The main arguments one can find on scheme 1. The discussion clearly showed that business foundations of women still will be a main point of further education and consulting – in spite of all national differences. The situation in Italy, Finland and Germany is only qualified comparable. But all participants asked for another way in dealing with business foundations of women. The necessity of creating corresponding social conditions, the defeat of traditional ways of thinking and the promotion of women´s motivation for business foundations were named as important prerequisites. The reduction of social barriers as well as the more intensive work with girls and young women for motivating to build up own enterprises is indispensable to win women for being self-employed.

The discussion of Workshop 3 concentrated to problems and needed actions concerning business foundations of women. The following criterions were collected by the participants and presented on the panel discussion:

3 aspects crystallised out of working with female business starters into problems:

• self-employed women work in a few branches (especially in services, the situation is comparable in Italy, Finland and Germany).
• The possibilities for financing female business foundations are insufficient. Often lacking securities make it difficult in addition.
• The handling of economic self-employment/entrepreneurship of women by women themselves and by their social surrounding is insufficient. That means f.e. women´s motivation for building up an own enterprise as well as the lacking social conditions (lacking child care, ...) and traditional ways of thinking that do not see entrepreneurship as one of the fields of activity of women.

The winning of women for self-employment in IT-fields was defined as central need for acting. Therefor it is necessary to lead girls and young women to new technologies very early to tell them about chances for entrepreneurial activities in this field.

Marja-Leena Haataja

MULTIPLY NOW, final conference, 2^nd March 2001, Leipzig, Germany;

Introduction into Workshop 3

A women’s co-operative – one enterprise among many

The Berta project was one of the largest NOW projects (1996-1998) financed by the European Social Fund to be implemented in Finland. The project was implemented in two Finnish regions: Kainuu and Uusimaa. Theses two regions differ considerably; Kainuu is a northern region experiencing net population migration. At the time of the project employment in the region was running at 24%, with women making up 46% of those unemployed. By contrast, Uusimaa, containing within it the Finnish capital city, is an area of both population and economic growth. At the present moment the unemployment rate in Kainuu is 20%. The project involved 125 participants in all, of which 55 were women from Kainuu. These included both women in work and unemployed women.

The project has helped to break down stereotypical gender divisions prevalent in both working life and education. In addition, new educational models and employment services were created in EU countries which take into account the particular needs of women. Berta was a training and development project which saw the implementation of six training programmes, two programmes of management training for women, two service and counselling training programmes for career guidance counsellors and those working in personnel management, a training programme for the tourist sector and a programme of cooperative entrepreneurship for unemployed women.

The quantitative results of the Berta project were as follows: of the thirty-four unemployed participants at the beginning of the project twenty-five found some form of employment; in all, sixty-one new jobs were created; fourteen training packages were produced, including, for example, management training for women and cooperative entrepreneurship, three cooperatives were established as well as various publications, networks, promotion and training videos, and a CD-rom.

In terms of qualitative results, the training projects comprised a common learning process in which everyone learned from each other. A second process-related result was the increasing of consciousness of women / gender issues. A third result related to the empowerment of women (e.g. increased confidence, daring, trust in one’s own decisions). Finally, networking was established between women.

The establishment of the Kirjokansi women’s cooperative

Twenty unemployed women from Kainuu took part in a small business and co-operative enterprise training programme. Participants admitted onto the project were those already motivated towards learning the fundamentals of entrepreneurial activity and co-operative entrepreneurship, and who wished to be involved in the creation of a women’s co-operative in Kainuu.

The training programme lasted almost two years, in other words, as long as the Berta project itself. It consisted of a four month long course of basic training followed by a trial and development period of one and a half years’ duration. This latter stage saw the creation in Kainuu region of the Kirjokansi Co-operative while a second co-operative was established soon after the conclusion of the project.

Who takes responsibility?

The idea behind the co-operative enterprise was to create new services in, amongst other areas, care of the elderly and home-care patients as well as other domestic services, the catering sector, and the temporary requirements of various kinds of homes and businesses. During the training period participants conducted a survey of both current and future service provision, its inadequacies and corresponding opportunities. Contacts were established with all municipal and regional public authorities concerned with entrepreneurial activity. Help was quite readily forthcoming although the idea of an all-women co-operative enterprise raised doubts in some quarters. The collective experiencing and solving of this and, indeed, many other problems brought the women closer together and developed their belief in the successful outcome of co-operative action.

The idea of a co-operative enterprise interested the women because they could see that personal support during he establishment phase was both available and forthcoming. The administration of a co-operative was also perceived by many of the women as an easy way into the world of business. Co-operative members retained their entitlement to unemployment benefit during periods when work was not on offer through the co-operative.

Clear values form the basis of collective enrepreneurship

The most important stage in the birth of the co-operative was a several week long discussion of content and values. As part of the discussion each participant had to explain both to themselves and to others why they wanted to be part of the co-operative, what they were ready to contribute towards it, and what they expected from themselves and from the others. From the discussion of values it became apparent that the co-operative would be active in wide diversity of sectors.

On the basis of the skills available it seemed that the collective enterprise would provide cafe services and catering for functions, care for the old, home care for the sick, domestic services, catering services for the elderly and, to some extent, childminding services. The discussion led to the definition of a commonly acceptable image for the enterprise based upon the principles of sustainable development and a positive, service-minded attitude.

The idea of stringent quality requirements created more difficulties than had been anticipated for many of those used to earning their wages in the service of an employer and led to self-doubts such as, will my work be good enough in terms of producing quality services and products? and, dare I really get involved in this kind of business?

The readiness of participants to continuously develop their professional skills, the forging of personal commitments, and the understanding and readiness to take responsibility for the economics of the enterprise were all secured before the establishment of the co-operative.

Who holds responsibility and where does the money come from?

After establishing the viability of the projected co-operative the women approached many quarters with their business ideas. The public employment authorities did not grant start-up financing, the regional Leader project did not provide funding assistance for the early stages and no loans were forthcoming form the banks in the absence of security collateral.

Then the Regional Development Fund granted a women’s entrepreneurship loan to the Kirjokansi Co-operative. Half of the loan was personally secured by the founding members. This was also for many the first step towards taking independent economic responsibility. The same individuals have continued to carry the bulk of the responsibility for the operations of the enterprise throughout its three year history.

Some of the members became disappointed when the co-operative was not able to provide them with continuous and regular work. In fact, the individual worker’s own qualities and abilities have much to do with the finding of even part-time work for oneself and others. This is, indeed, the basis of success in co-operative entrepreneurship; each member is also an entrepreneur and the co-operative is a business. In a sparsely populated region such as Kainuu unemployment falls only slowly while new services are produced and bought at a decidedly unhurried pace.

The Kirjokansi Co-operative has twenty-eight members at present. Adapting to entrepreneurship within a co-operative has been easier for those who attended the initial training programme than for those who joined later. In particular, those from the various care sectors, where instructions traditionally come from higher levels of a hierarchical management structure, have had much to learn concerning the co-operative’s operating principles. At the same time, the co-operative model can cause problems for former entrepreneurs. The collective nature of a co-operative requires the patience and stamina to work things out together with other members even though each has to bear the responsibility for his own particular contribution.

The Kirjokansi Co-operative employs on average five people full-time, ten approximately two to three days a week and a smaller number on an occasional basis.

The co-operative is organised into two teams, namely, the Cafe and Restaurant Team, and the Care and Maintenance Team.

The Cafe and Restaurant Team seeks to meet the demand for cafe services in municipal cultural establishments such as the town theatre and public library.

The co-operative has its own headquarters which includes within it a day-care centre.

The future – Women and Technology

The main economic sectors in Kainuu region are wood processing, metal, stone quarrying, information technology, culture and tourism.

Of these, the greatest investment has been put into high technology and attracting high-tech companies to the region. At the same time, the proportion of women entrepreneurs in this sector is low in national terms and non-existent within Kainuu region. Getting women involved in this area of entrepreneurship is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, if women are not involved in the planning and steering of high-tech developments so gender inequality will increase and development priorities become distorted. Furthermore, when women are involved in planning and management tasks so the female perspective is able to influence technological development. It may be supposed that women are particularly concerned with environmental and health-care issues. Women stress the importance of human resources within the information society.

Efforts should at the present time be particularly directed towards young girls and women; to get them interested in studying technical subjects, mathematics and the natural sciences; in particular, to get them involved in planning and management tasks within high technology.

Source:

Tamminen, S., 2000. The story of the Kirjokansi Women’s Co-operative – who takes responsibility? (published as part of the book ‘Survivor’s Cookbook’ edit. Riitta Välke-Salme. Adapt/Employment publication No. 21. Ministry of Labour.

Business foundations of women – experience and ideas

Ideas presented by the participants:

Business foundations of women – experience and ideas

aspects collected by the participants

to be presented at the panel discussion: