Irreconcilable differences? Women in small business and VET

The aim of this report is to synthesise the findings of recent research to inform policy formation through a coherent and consistent gender analysis of the links between vocational education and training (VET) and small business. Women as small business operators are the focus of this report for the following reasons:

• most relevant research literature concentrates on women as small business operators
• over 90 per cent of all non-agricultural businesses in Australia are classified as 'small'
• women business operators are concentrated in the smaller enterprises
• the substantial increase in women's involvement as small business operators
• the current VET system is modeled around industry demands and those of large employers, making small and medium sized enterprises problematic in terms of where and how they 'fit'

The report builds on the findings of an earlier study (Barrett 1997) where the views of over 70 women business operators and their attitudes to, and experiences of, VET and its contribution to their business, were analysed. Barrett's findings are largely supported by recent research on small business generally and women in business specifically reviewed in this report.

Misplaced policy focus and assumptions

Some focus and assumptions upon which policy for VET are premised appear misplaced and fail to offer practices likely to meet the needs of small business and, in particular, women in small business.

There is an apparent conflict between current policies relating to VET and those relating to employment. VET policy is quite deliberately passing responsibility for organising workforce training back to employers. At the same time, industrial relations policy is weakening the traditional (male) relationship between employers and employees. However, work is being organised in new ways where workers are responsible for their employment contracts and their ongoing training.

For instance, one reason small business is held to have lower levels of participation in VET training than large business, is the relative lack of employment tenure. This results in small business employers being reluctant to provide training for employees. They prefer to recruit trained people, or claim that training is less important than attitude to work. By implication then, one wonders whether the erosion of traditional employer-employee relationships in large workplaces will also reinforce a reluctance to provide training. Such a situation would be completely at odds with policies aimed at employers taking a greater share of the responsibility for training.

Therefore, it is recommended that assumptions upon which VET policy is founded be premised on kinds of employment to which they are focussed. Small business needs are distinct from those of industry and large enterprises. In particular, assumptions need to be reviewed to fashion responses best suited to women in small business. For instance, instead of asking 'what sort of training do women business operators need', we should start asking 'what assistance/knowledge/ incentive do they need' and then identify the training, resources, networks and so on, required, and how these elements can complement each other. So far, most work focusses on the supposed solutions when we have not yet adequately defined the problem.

Challenging orthodoxies

The term 'industry' has come to mean the peak bodies for each industry sector, whose assigned role is to represent the interests of their members. However, just who those members are often remains unclear. Generally, small business operators do not participate in peak industry bodies (e.g. Barrett 1997; SAWAC [South Australian Women's Advisory Council] 1996). Sometimes they join the local chamber of commerce or a regional development board. We also know that women small business operators tend not to join anything at all, or when they do join they do not receive all the benefits of membership that are available to men. Also, not all small businesses fit into the delineations of industry as represented by industry peak bodies.

Small business is both a 'client' of the national VET system (as enterprise and industry) and constitutes a group of potential trainees--a problematic position in policy terms re take-up of training. However, the literature relating to training for 'small business' tends either not to differentiate between employer/ employee, or to use the terms interchangeably.

Traditionally, business has been conceptualised and analysed in terms of either number of employees or annual turnover. This sort of approach assumes universally accepted and understood business goals of profit generation and growth. From this has developed an orthodoxy about typical business life-cycle based on a linear progression from start-up through incremental growth, to stability and sometimes degeneration (or even occasionally, sudden death). The appropriateness and/or accuracy of this orthodoxy is not questioned in the literature. Similarly, it is accepted unproblematically as the 'norm' by VET policy-makers.

An Industry Commission report on small business employment (Revesz & Lattimore 1997) reveals that only a select number of small companies grow big enough to hire more staff. It also points out that staff in small businesses earn less than their big business counterparts (up to 20% less), that staff turnover is higher, less is spent on training and small firms are more likely to employ casual staff. The report cautions government about giving special help to the small business sector. However, this conclusion denies key concerns about women as self-employed within their own small businesses.

Indeed, a large proportion of small businesses never grows (and this does not just apply to those run by women). Research on women's participation in small business has extended our understanding of the sector and factors determining growth. This has largely been achieved through the work of Still and her associates in describing women's reality, rather than describing how it deviates from the accepted norm. From this, the potential for growth is linked not only to the state of the industry in which a business operates, its competitiveness and its ability to exploit new markets, but to the desires and lifestyle decisions of its owner/s. Consequently, federal and State/Territory government expectations that small business growth will lead to more jobs, (e.g. Australia 1997) are questionable.

Small business operators demonstrate deep ambivalence to VET training. Moreover, they demonstrate a preference for process oriented on-the-job learning. This is difficult to capture in a competency-based training package system that focusses on outcomes, not process. The paradox here is an old one for women--learning 'on-the-job' has inevitably resulted in non-recognised and non-accredited (and therefore often non-remunerated) learning. In a climate of high affirmation of credentials, this continues to be problematic and an ongoing challenge for VET policy-makers and providers.

Therefore, it is recommended that orthodoxy associated with the organisation of advice for assumptions about business practice and goals, and the positioning of small business as a client rather than a consumer of VET, be challenged.

Current policy, equity and small business

The more the VET system moves to a fully marketised model, the more pronounced are issues around gender/equity (see Barnett & Wilson 1995; Butler & Ferrier forthcoming), and the lack of congruence between the needs and everyday realities of women small business owners and training opportunities and outcomes available, is widened.

Women and other disadvantaged groups have usually been on the periphery of the training system, which has been largely designed for, and analysed in relation to, white male employees (usually in the manufacturing sector). That model is becoming increasingly irrelevant to most Australian workers and would-be workers. Marginal groups have always had to find alternative ways of negotiating the system. Even young people making the transition from school to work do not fit the prevailing model with its linear pathway from one to the other (Dwyer & Wyn [in Ferrier & Anderson 1998]).

This dilemma is sharpened further when we consider the focus of this report--that of vocational training for women who are owner-operators of their own businesses or their employees. Most of these businesses are located within feminised areas of the labour force. Thus, a layering of equity issues is apparent--both around gender, and also around the comparative disadvantage of small business to 'fit' into the policies, structure and culture of the VET system. It would appear that 'small business' has also been categorised as a special needs group.

Women's participation in VET has been characterised by their absence in trades training (at the same time their lower earnings were also linked to this phenomenon). The response within VET was to implement a range of activities to encourage girls to study subjects which would enable entry into the male-dominated areas, and to assist them to survive in the environment if they chose to pursue the option. This response implies that the so-called 'norm' is acceptable, even desirable. Women's poor representation in certain occupations has always been approached in terms of identifying factors that keep them out. Yet, we know that there are many reasons why women find some of these occupations unattractive and even unpalatable. These include: the nature of the work itself, the way the work is organised, its location, and the alienation of working in a male dominated culture. The belief that encouraging sufficient women into these areas would provide a critical mass that could ultimately change things has not gained substance.

This approach continues to be the focus of much policy making. Mainstreaming, affirmative action, access and equity, have all focussed on forcing or encouraging women to move from where they are to where the men are--thereby supposedly fixing the problem. In reality, it has been eliminating the symptoms so as not to have to engage with the disease. This is the classic approach to a cultural dilemma articulated by Still and Mortimer (1994).

The same approach is now being taken to women in small business. First, identify the differences: women do not 'grow' their business. Then explain those phenomena in terms of certain deficiencies of women--lack of confidence, unwillingness to take risks and so on. So the system is reinforced as being 'all right' and the individuals are clearly the source of the problem. Other common differences cited about women in business are discussed in chapter 2--they work less hours, they do not employ people, they do not take risks, they are not 'hard-nosed' enough.

The women themselves are placed in a dilemma by this approach. Because explanations for the differences are unequivocally linked with being female--that is, they are (covertly) represented as character flaws; women feel they must deny their existence. Barrett's (1997) subjects insisted that they had not been disadvantaged in business by the fact that they were women (i.e. they didn't have these fundamental flaws), and yet when prompted they talked freely about incidents where they had been discriminated against because they were women. Hooper (1998) also reported this phenomenon.

Policy responses to 'difference' tend to be about 'helping' women to participate in a system that was not designed with their participation in mind. The presence of women in public spheres of activity constantly poses difficulties that tend to be resolved through strategies designed to accommodate women's participation with minimal disruption to the system itself. Still and Mortimer (1994) use the term 'cultural dilemma' to describe the inability of organisations to deal with women in management. In organisational terms, cultural dilemmas lead to the development of methods for including previously excluded individuals 'so that the dominant culture, or accepted ways of doing things, is not altered in any way' (Still & Mortimer 1994:3). Policy that seeks to incorporate women into an existing system without questioning the validity of the system in the first place uses exactly this approach.

A reliance on quantification hides the 'cultural dilemmas'. The qualitative approach has been particularly useful for articulating the reality of women's lives, and for understanding the complexity of negotiating male dominated structures and institutions. Quantitative studies can best gauge the degree of participation realised by women; however, qualitative analysis can indicate why. In their most simplistic forms, quantitative analysis indicates the scope of a phenomenon while qualitative analysis sheds light on its nature and causes.

Still and Timms (1998a) point out that many women starting businesses do so because they have rejected the status quo. Therefore, it is not enough to merely investigate difference from the point of view of eliminating it. Instead, it is time for some movement in the other direction. Rather than applaud those handful of businesswomen who 'make it in a man's world', and set them up as role models for the rest, perhaps we should be exploring how women do it differently and still survive. There has to be a serious investigation of why women-operated businesses have a better survival rate than those run by men. We do not know enough about how women plan and make financial decisions.

It is recommended that, for VET to become both accessible and more relevant to women, new understandings of their requirements and experiences need to be developed and incorporated into policy design. Moving away from 'taken for granted' conceptualisations of both 'small business' and 'women' (and ultimately the VET system itself) will assist the work necessary to inform such a paradigmatic shift.

Further, it is recommended that where a gender analysis is undertaken in research, the purpose not be to describe how women differ from the norm and to explain why this is the case. These kinds of explanations are based on generalisations (and sometimes unexamined assumptions) about women's experiences compared with men. For example, that women have child-care responsibilities, different workforce experiences, and that their socialisation affects their behaviour. Implicit in this approach is a belief that the problem is really about being a woman, not about the deficiencies of societal structures that do not recognise, let alone accommodate the real life experiences of a huge (and increasing) proportion of the population of interest.

Women, small business and VET provisions

Arising from the inappropriateness of the policy orientation and the cultural dilemmas identified above comes the need for approaches to organising VET for women in small business. New models are needed for lifelong learning and training in small business and for women business operators specifically. The following recommendations point to such approaches.

It is recommended that it is timely to switch the emphasis from learning styles and learning preferences to examine issues about juggling time and multiple roles of women small business operators. Given the 'time poverty' factor identified by Still and Timms (1998a), and the reality of small business owners' lives, issues beyond learning preferences have to be considered. In illuminating the difficulty associated with making space for learning while continually seeking to establish routine in a climate of perpetual change and challenge, research has identified different premises for learning arrangements. This need is made more urgent by findings that show women's unpaid work does not decrease when they enter paid employment (e.g. Bittman & Pixley 1997).

It is recommended that, given the precarious small business environment, commitment to training is more likely to be for a specific purpose than for achieving long-term goals.

Research also indicates that small business operators are much more likely to provide training if they have undertaken training themselves (Coopers & Lybrand 1994). Therefore, it is recommended that a first-stage effort directed at small business owners would be sensible in assisting in the evolution and valuing of a learning culture in small business.

Further, it is recommended that the focus of VET effort be directed to approaches that meet women small business operators' needs. Field (1997) identified critical areas relating to learning in small business. These include the need to understand: (i) the influence of enterprise context on learning; (ii) whether and why knowledge or skill is valued; (iii) how they are utilised within the firm and (iv) how learning is transferred between individuals and systems both within and between enterprises; and (v) learning from and in networks. Further, the need for: (i) understanding the wide range of organisations and individuals with whom the small business interacts (e.g. customers, suppliers, industry associations, subcontractors ) and (ii) considering their needs at a particular point in time. Together, these lead to an exploration of the nature of activities and trajectory of development within the business, as a basis for learning in and by small business employees and operators.

Furthermore, it is recommended that approaches to learning offered by Adult and Community Education (ACE) and Still and Timms (1998b) be considered. A direct link between ACE and training for work has been identified (Butler & Lawrence 1996, McIntyre & Kimberley 1998), despite popular beliefs the sector provides only recreational and leisure programs. ACE has long been used intensively by women. Small business attraction to ACE has been attributed to its local nature and its responsiveness to local needs. Further, Still and Timms' (1998b) cellular model of women in small business provides a model that avoids treating small business as a mini version of 'big business'.