FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS' AUTHORITY: IS THE CREATIVE ASPECT OF AUTHORITY A MASCULINE FICTION IN MANAGERIAL AND ENTREPRENEURIAL PARADIGMS?

Abstract

Authority is the confirmation of the control an individual has over norms and codes (Sennet, 1981). It stimulates the development of social capital. Gender shapes authority. Bourdieu (1994) stresses that in traditional societies men can interpret and produce norms whereas women reproduce them and consequently may experience difficulties in constructing their authority. Butler (1990) confirms that this dichotomy is still effective in post-modern contexts. In the literature on women entrepreneurs, scholars stress their lack of social capital as an impediment to growing the business and suggest that they should follow the male model (Aldrich et al., 1997; Ban et al., 1996). However, if one examines carefully the process of production of social capital, one would see that it is the result of a strict gender labor-division. In spite of their agentivity, female entrepreneurs fail to overcome this. Many of them may thus be tempted to adapt male patterns of authority. The present study examines how women entrepreneurs and minority business owners assimilate authority that is encapsulated in the traditional male entrepreneurial discourse. Then it analyses the perception of women entrepreneurs on authority and its impact on their style of internal management and their strategies of networking. The results reveal that either female entrepreneurs adopt authority as a repressive tool of management that helps them to develop their social capital in restricted circles of influence or they scorn authority as the display of norms that may endanger the reputation of their firms and their social influence without proposing a clear alternative. Apparently, women entrepreneurs deny the creative aspects of authority that Sennet and his Foucaldian followers have detected in managers' behaviors in the context of organizational sociology.