Elizabeth Walker

Entrepreneurial Leadership and Gender: Exploring Theory and Practice in Global Contexts

This article reflects on extant scholarship on entrepreneurial leadership and gender, as published in both the ournal of mall usiness anagement and elsewhere. As such, it lays the foundation for the special issue, and contributes to current knowledge in the field. Our selected papers—summarized and critiqued in this article—collectively offer a contemporary view of womens entrepreneurial leadership at the global level that should usefully contribute to extending scholarly debates. In this regard, we highlight the diversity and complexity of womens entrepreneurial leadership, and demonstrate that it is both economically and contextually embedded, worthy of further scholarly attention.

Leadership in Local Government: 'No Girls Allowed'

This article explores the under-representation of women at the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) levels of Western Australian (WA) local government. It draws on data collected from 21 second tier senior women managers about their perceptions and experiences of leadership within the sector, as well as their aspirations for CEO appointment. By applying critical gender analysis to the data, gender and specifically masculinity emerges as a significant and valued leadership attribute. While this analysis is not unique to local government, what sets the sector apart is its apparent disinterest in examining the reasons for, or the impacts of this continued leadership stereotype when at the same time Australian public and private institutions are challenging these traditional leadership models. This article points to fundamental weaknesses in the formal power structures and processes of local government that support deeply embedded biases about leadership. Perhaps the most significant contributor to these outcomes that emerged from the study is the apparent unencumbered power of Mayors and elected members over all aspects of CEO employment, especially recruitment.

Learning management by self-employed occupational therapists in private practice

BACKGROUND/AIMnThis study explored how occupational therapists in private practice developed the business skills needed to operate a successful private practice. The literature shows that many small-business owner-managers have poorly developed business skills, and some experience high rates of failure. This indicates that to be successful in private practice, occupational therapists need to gain mastery of management competencies in addition to their professional clinical competencies.nnnMETHODSnA qualitative study, using in-depth interviews, collected data from twenty-six self-employed occupational therapists on their experiences of becoming a small-business owner-manager. A narrative analysis built an understanding about how these therapists developed their business competencies.nnnRESULTSnAnalysis revealed the factors affecting the development of business competencies were interactions between the initial motivations for start-up, growth aspirations and engagement with external business environments. Business competencies developed through a combination of formal learning prior to starting their businesses, and informal learning once their businesses were in operation. Lower level learning occurred in the routine and operational processes, with higher level learning through discontinuous events resulting in a transformation in the therapists understanding about themselves as business owner-managers.nnnCONCLUSIONSnFindings led to a proposition that occupational therapists make the transition to becoming successful small-business owner-manager through management learning that includes elements of self-reflection, identifying environmental opportunities and risks, developing capabilities, and strategic planning for growth and development. It provides insights on what occupational therapists need to consider to become successful small-business owner-managers.