Donna Stoddard

How does gender and minority status shape entrepreneurial decision-making? This question seems long overdue since minority women in the US start new businesses at four times the rate of non-minority men and women. 

This book is about minority women entrepreneurs in the United States. Though these women are thriving as business owners, their stories are very seldom told, and few think of minority women as successful entrepreneurs. Therefore, the first purpose of the book is to give voice and visibility to US minority women business owners. 

The second purpose is to explain what makes these women different from the standard white male business owners most people are familiar with. Through in-depth interviews and first-hand accounts from minority women entrepreneurs, the authors found that, in innovative and exciting ways, minority women use their outsider status to develop socially conscious business practices that support the communities with which they identify. 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 that 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 why women, especially minority women, have a tendency to create socially responsible businesses. The innovations provided by the women in this study suggest fresh solutions to economic inequality and humanistic alternatives to exploitative business policies. This is a radically new, socially integrated model that can be used by businesses everywhere. 

This book is intended for undergraduate and graduate students of business, sociology, race and gender studies as well as practitioners of entrepreneurship, aspiring entrepreneurs, and all those looking for new examples of holistic, sustainable and socially responsible business practices.