Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Entrepreneurship
There are documented additional barriers and hurdles that women, people of color, and other marginalized populations need to overcome that make it more difficult to create new businesses and start the path to entrepreneurship. Some of the most well known include finding seed money and investors, as well as additional hurdles.
Below are our recommended resources for learning about and identifying strategies for overcoming those hurdles.
Overview
We recommend the following research studies to get a full understanding of the role that race plays in entrepreneurship:
Books and ebooks
The following books and ebooks are all available directly from the University of Rochester
African American Entrepreneurs by
African American entrepreneurs are key contributors to the American economy. Faced with numerous challenges, many African American entrepreneurs have learned to transcend tough obstacles, leverage resources, and strategically pursue opportunities to achieve business success. This book captures the stories and mindsets of contemporary African Americans in their quest for the American dream.
Implementing Supplier Diversity: Driver of Entrepreneurship by
This book provides an in-depth view of supplier diversity programs and how they have contributed to the meteoric rise of minority businesses. Incorporating expert advice from supplier diversity practitioners as well as empirical data, it looks at the emergence of supplier diversity programs, how to make them effective, and their future. Supplier diversity ensures an open and inclusive competition for contracts during the procurement process, and the use of vendors of different backgrounds fosters a better understanding of a diverse customer base. Over the last decade the number of minority-owned firms in the US has increased 38 per cent.
Minority Women Entrepreneurs by
Minority women start new businesses in the U.S. at four times the rate of non-minority men and women. Though minority women entrepreneurs in the United States are thriving, their stories are very seldom told, and few think of minority women as successful entrepreneurs. Minority Women Entrepreneurs gives voice and visibility to this group of business owners.The second purpose of this book is to explain what makes these women different from the standard white, male business owners with whom most people are familiar. Through in-depth interviews and firsthand accounts from minority women entrepreneurs, the authors found that minority women use their outsider status to develop socially conscious business practices that support their communities in innovative and exciting ways. They reject the idea that business values are separate from personal values, and instead balance profits with social good and environmental sustainability. This pattern is repeated in statistical evidence from around the globe: women contribute a much higher percentage of their earnings to social good than do men. But, until now, there was no clear explanation of why. Using sociological and psychological theories, the authors explain the tendency for women, especially minority women, to create socially responsible businesses. The findings in this book suggest fresh solutions to economic inequality and humanistic alternatives to exploitative business policies. Herein lays a radically new, socially integrated model that can be used by businesses everywhere.
A Research Agenda for Women and Entrepreneurship by
Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary.This book looks at long-studied questions of identity from the perspective of women entrepreneurs, exploring ideas related to entrepreneurial identity for women and their businesses. The editors map out a vision for research on women and entrepreneurship and discuss aspiration, behaviors and confidence as key concepts that shape and enhance a woman's identity in the entrepreneurial process. A global collection of authors who are passionate about identity and women's entrepreneurship bring a variety of theoretical perspectives and quantitative methodologies to the table. Through a common framework of on women business owners and their businesses, they delve into social identity, start-ups, crowdfunding and context to set the groundwork for future research on entrepreneurship and gender.Advanced graduate students and researchers in the field of entrepreneurship will appreciate this focused exploration of a compelling topic, as will doctoral students and scholars of women's issues.
To locate additional books from our collections, we suggest the following search terms:
Conferences present the opportunity to see and hear the top thinkers, researchers, and practitioners in the field-and many make information accessible even for those that do not attend. For events previously held, you can visit the conference site to locate the names and contact of past speakers, and often download PowerPoints, audio, or video of selected presentations. You can also look to see if there will be another event held next year. For upcoming events, you can also locate experts, and get a sense of the key and emerging issues by reviewing the upcoming talks and presentations
Previously Held Events:
September 21-23 2020
United Status Patent & Trademark Office May 3 2020
Black Enterprise virtual conference to be held Nov 12–13, 2020.
The below sites will all direct you to dozens of social media influencers in the area of diversity and entrrpreneurship. In addition, a timely article that is worth reading is "Black Influencers Respond to Brands Black Lives Matter Posts."
Locating Women and People of Color Owned Companies
There are databases and free on the Web resources that will permit you to generate a list of women and people of color owned businesses. Here are our recommendations and instructions for generating such a list
Reference Solutions via Data Axle:
Go to the U.S. Businesses Database and select Advanced Search. In the Executives options select Executive Gender to filter for Male or Female or Executive Ethnicity to filter for one or more listed ethnicities. Alternatively, when you have a list of search results, if you select Download > Custom you can add the Executive Gender and Executive Ethnicity fields to the list of columns to export.
Crunchbase, a free database of hundreds of thousands of start-ups, venture funded and small tech companies, has introduced a feature that includes a filter that permits users to generate a list of companies that are led or founded by Blacks, Latinex or other diverse populations. :