Barriers and Mitigating Strategies of Entrepreneurial Business Growth: The Role of Entrepreneur Race and Gender

Natasha Conley; Diana Bilimoria

doi:10.1515/erj-2020-0061

Article

Barriers and Mitigating Strategies of Entrepreneurial Business Growth: The Role of Entrepreneur Race and Gender

Natasha Conley and Diana Bilimoria

Published/Copyright: May 17, 2021

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From the journal Entrepreneurship Research Journal Volume 12 Issue 3

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the obstacles to growth and the mitigating strategies of high-performing (over $1 million in revenues) entrepreneurial businesses, and how these differ between businesses owned by Black and White entrepreneurs and between female and male entrepreneurs. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and qualitatively analyzed using grounded theory and thematic analysis methods. Findings reveal that the lack of access to capital is faced by all groups of entrepreneurs, but that Black and female entrepreneurs additionally faced racial discrimination and gender bias obstacles to their business growth. While all entrepreneurs used social capital strategies to mitigate the barriers to growth that their businesses faced, Black and female entrepreneurs additionally employed faith and prayer as well as business engagement in governmental and corporate diversity initiatives as strategies to overcome the obstacles. Implications of the findings for the entrepreneurial business growth of racial/ethnic minority and female-owned firms are discussed.

Keywords: African American/Black entrepreneurs; barriers; business growth; diversity; faith; minority business; mitigating factors; women entrepreneurs

Corresponding author: Natasha Conley, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, 44106-7235 Cleveland, OH, USA, E-mail: natasha.conley@case.edu

Appendix 1

Interview Protocol

Please tell me about yourself (i.e. family, education, community involvement, hobbies, work-life balance).

Probes: (a) Please elaborate.

2. Tell me about your role in your company and what a normal day consists of.

Probes: (a) Please tell me more.

3. Why did you start your business?

Probes: (a) Vision? (b) Feelings about it? (c) Examples?

4. Please describe a time when you were faced with a major obstacle to growing your business.

Probes: (a) Explain the obstacle? (b) How did you feel? (c) What did you do? (d) Describe how you overcame the obstacle. (e) How did you keep growing? (f) Who helped you? (g) Where did you get advice? (h) Did you seek additional capital?

5. Please describe a major opportunity that allowed you to grow your business.

Probes: (a) Explain the opportunity. (b) How did you feel? (c) What did you do? (e) Describe how it grew your business. (f) Who helped you get the opportunity? (g) Where did you get advice? (h) What was your financial situation? Did you seek additional capital? (i) How did this experience align with your vision? (j) Describe your work location and facilities.

6. Are there any other experiences you would like to share about growing your business?

Probes: (a) Tell me about the importance of growth to you in your business? (b) Has your vision changed since start-up? (c) Any examples?

Appendix 2

Additional Quote Evidence for First Order Codes and Second Order Themes

Sample quote evidence	First-order code	Second-order theme
Going to the bank is a catch-22. You go to the bank, they go through everything and they find one little thing that’s off, even though you’ve deposited money into that bank account for six or seven years, they’ll point to that one little thing to say, “Oh, no, we can’t give you this. We can’t do that for you” (AAM5).	Lack of access to capital-- general	Access to capital
We needed to increase our line of credit and they were not having it. After we showed them our backlog and we were trying to convince them there’s some contracts out there that we’ve already signed. They said, “I think I’ll pass.” We tried several banks and nobody was biting. I think they were telling us “no” because we’re a minority business and a very small one. Now we’re not as small, but I think that’s why. Firms have to have a directive to do business with those in the community that don’t look like them. If they don’t, they do business with whom they’re used to doing business with (AAF5).	Lack of access to capital due to race
I’m sitting there and I remember the loan officer asking me “Did your husband, has your husband reviewed your plan, and does he agree with it?” I said “No, what does that got to do with anything?” I said later it was almost like because he’s your husband, he’s the head of the household, and if he says you can’t do this, you can’t do it. I said “My husband’s got to read my plan? Just sign the thing” (AAF1).	Lack of access to capital due to gender
Where we have turned down work is when they call us just to be secretaries and to satisfy their minority business requirement. Yeah, I had a local high-profile production company call and wanted to put us on a project. It called for 15% minority participation, but they just wanted to run the numbers through our books and really not have us do any work (AAF9).	Unequal treatment due to race	Racial discrimination
From an architectural standpoint, I was really one of a small handful of folks, really nationally that were going out and had done multiple, Higher Ed implementations and installations and such. I got to a project in Louisiana. They had a seasoned, white female who, once I came in, said she wasn’t interested in me helping her. Now, she did not know what she was doing, because it was a fairly new product, so I stayed out of the way. They allocated me to do some other work. I stayed out of her way and such, but they quickly realized that was not going to work, that they couldn’t get anything done unless they got me the access that was needed (AAM9).	Avoidance due to race
… we were up against an ad agency that is male and white owned and this was a public, financially a public project and a big piece of the work was understanding women and understanding diverse markets. This is where we … It’s a joke. Really, it’s like a big, huge joke. Of course the person got the … That company got the business and they don’t know crap about women or people of color, at all. Of course they had to hire somebody … They could have called us from the beginning and said, “Let’s partner, this is your area of expertise” (AAF4).	Exclusion due to race
He threatened one of the glove manufactures that was getting ready to open me up as a distributor and he said, “If you sell to her I will cut you off and he goes I will never buy from you again.” There’s plenty of glove manufactures and I’ll cut them off. It was [Name] Company so it was a big name in the industry, [Name] and in gloves and things of that nature, then it became [Name] industries. He did, he punished my local sales, the area rep that would sell the gloves to me. He punished him for one solid year because he opened me up (NMF1).	Unequal treatment due to gender	Gender bias
… we had both went to a meeting with another company. They had wanted to do some business and the guy kept shuffling. I said, “Well, what are you interested in?” He was dancing around the subject. And I’m matter-of-fact. What do you want to know? Do you want to, are you looking to do, for me to prime it (the contract)? After the meeting, he calls [Name], which is my advisor and says, “[Participant Name] is just too aggressive” (AAF2).	Avoidance due to gender
I will say that discrimination follows you when you start a business. I did a spreadsheet. I had a lawyer to help me get my 8(a) certification. As part of that, I did an Excel spreadsheet of our first five years of income for [Company Name] and 90% of our revenue came from women in the first year. 90% of our revenue came from women. After that I got smart. We went after government-contract work, an advantage to be a woman, because you get certified. Early on when I was just trying to get corporate business, the men wouldn’t give it to me (NMF5)	Exclusion due to gender
The [Company Name] relationship was great, because they continually put us in more and more opportunities to do some things, we’ve been working with them in a lot of different ways … for example, they have allowed us to work on different projects with them, which has been awesome (AAM6).	Teaming partner relationships	Social capital
Maybe all this money is because of my business success but not really, it’s our family. That’s because you all sacrificed and you supported me. Every night at dinner … every single night to this day we talk about [Company Name]. My kids went through every single decision, every firing, every hiring; every contract (NMF5).	Family relationships
We do have companies that started, or gave us work, early, that are still, we still work with them. Twelve years later. They saw potential in us. They brought us in on projects. We performed on those projects. To this day, if the opportunity’s there, they’ll call us up. That’s the good thing also. We don’t have to do a lot of calling. That turned around. Initially, when you first start, you’re calling everybody, going here. You’re going to meetings. You’ve got meetings all day long. You’re selling your company. Trying to get your word out there, your business. Then, after a while, they start calling you (AAM1).	Client relationship
So it was the fact a new business in the early 80s going to a bank and saying you’re starting a new business with big organizations when you are a nobody. You don’t really have any kind of backing so that wasn’t easy for them to swallow but the proof was in the pudding. And [Name] people themselves the managers we worked for actually met with our banker. We got them together they literally were across the street from one another so it was kind of easy. We did that and we invited them over to the facility and let them meet all the people and the senior vice president of the organization at the time nothing was in writing but they said we would go along with it and they did (NMM3).	Banking relationships
I write training for entrepreneurs. I tell them all the time, “You can say you’re an atheist but you won’t say it long if you’re an entrepreneur,” because, at some point or other, you will be on your knees. You will be praying. You may not see it today, but it’s there. It’s coming. That’s what I mean. There are things that entrepreneurship makes you face head on, without the parachutes of the major corporations or all the backup. For that, you have to know who your partners are, and in our case, we’re proud to say God has always been our partner. That’s why I say by the grace of God, because there are many … I could tell you more than one occasion where we thought we might have been out of business, but we weren’t. (AAF7)	Guidance from God/Divine intervention	Faith and prayer
We could have been banned from all future contract work with the government. I could have gone to jail for it. Through all of that when we were finding it all out, hiring lawyers, working through it, going to [Name], we got involved more, we just prayed and prayed. Our leadership team was just bent down praying, because it was scary and complicated and awful. I think prayer lifted the group, consoled the group and gave strength to the group in a way that helped an entrepreneurial company survive. We made better decisions because we were calm and prayed together (NMF5).	Prayers for help
Spiritual intervention. I was going through the list of Washington technology top 100 contractors because we set up at the CCR … and a guy from [Name] called me because all I ever talked about was business and so they called and said I want to talk to you about a contract. It’s a directing officer out of the army. I said this is not funny it must be a joke. He called back and said look my name is [Name], this is my number. This is my name. This is my office. Call me back. I called the number it was [Name] can I help you? Basically the first two opportunities were just given to me so there is no theory for this (AAM4).	Prayers being answered
We became 8a certified in 2013, so that has helped to open up the doors to places we couldn’t have gone to before. Participation in 8a program has led to our presence and coordinating and meeting with program officers as well as program management (AAM3).	Diversity initiatives helped open doors	Diversity initiatives (DI)
A guy called and said, I need an estimator. I see you’re an MBE firm. Would you mind submitting a cost to help us on this project? We said, “Well, how did you run across us?” He said, “Well, the MBE directory.” My thought is if it wasn’t for being an MBE, we wouldn’t have gotten that call from that firm (AAM1).	Diversity initiatives foster relationships between majority and minority firms
I said I had to set myself apart from the competition and the good old boys and taking them on hunting trips and stuff. I couldn’t do that with my customers. I said, we would be the most professional, the most technical, the most innovative and the most ethical safety company in this industry. That is how I built my business and that was by year four (NMF1)	Diversification, differentiation, and innovation	Expansion
We followed up a particular prime contract with [Name] sub contract. Then our performance there over the years now has propelled us to gain additional contracts with Navy, National Guard for all as well as CIA (AAM3).	Contract and client growth
… I just always wanted to grow and then I always wanted to see my sales people grow because then I would grow but also I loved mentoring people (NMF1).	Employment growth
Even after 25 years, we run lean and mean. We don’t carry debt, which is why we’ve survived 25 years (NMF4).	Ability to withstand	Longevity

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Received: 2020-02-18

Accepted: 2021-03-23

Published Online: 2021-05-17

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/erj-2020-0061

Keywords for this article

African American/Black entrepreneurs; barriers; business growth; diversity; faith; minority business; mitigating factors; women entrepreneurs