That is just one of the many astonishing statistics that Mary Godwyn and Donna Stoddard discuss in their new book, Minority Women Entrepreneurs: How Outsider Status Can Lead to Better Business Practices.
For example, did you know that minority women start new businesses in the U.S. at four times the rate of non-minority women and men? And yet their stories are seldom told. Minority Women Entrepreneurs gives voice to these women and, as recent attention in the New York Times and Business Week shows, the world is beginning to pay attention.
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, 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.
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