Work on this project follows the GBA+ framework, which considers multiple intersections (gender, age, ethnicity, etc.) when examining the experiences of individuals within a group.
This framework with inform our investigative approach and subsequent analysis.
Did You Know?
Reproductive life cycle as a major factor in women’s decision to go into entrepreneurship (Orser, 2012)
The Accelerating Women Team believes in the power of women’s voices to provide knowledge, expertise and diversity. We employ the Status of Women Canada GBA+ framework to guide the mapping, gap analysis and other parts of our project. Originally created for federal government agencies to support policies and programming, GBA+ is a feminist methodology that considers our multiple layers of identity.
The underlying principle of this methodology is that gender intersects with various other facets of our identity to create unique experiences for each person. The term GBA+ literally means gender-based analysis plus various issues, including, language, age, ethnicity, class and so forth. In practice, this means that each female business owner has a unique story based on her multiple social locations.
As a team, we seek to account for all of the diversity in women business owners. Throughout the project, we will spotlight women from all different walks of life who have the common goal of growing their business. The GBA+ framework will inform each investigative and consultative tool used for Accelerating Women, including our online survey, facilitated focus group sessions and video interviews.
To find out more about the GBA+ framework, visit Status of Women Canada.
In this phase of the project, we will be conducting facilitated focus group sessions to assess the efficiency of local and regional supports for female business owners. Questions will be open-ended and interactive to allow for participant discussion. The aim of the focus groups is to identify and evaluate the perceived and unperceived needs of women-owned businesses as well as their competencies. Sessions will be held at our partners’ office locations. Please visit the attend a sessions if you are interested in attending an upcoming event.
How do women define success? What is the importance of mentorship in business life? What are some of the ways that women collaborate and create opportunities for each other? In this phase of the project, we will be conducting video interviews to illuminate the voices of female business owners. The aim of the videos is to allow women to express their hopes, dreams and challenges of conducting business/entrepreneurship. Video interviews will be held at our office location in July and August, 2015, and will be used to promote the project and female businesses online.
This large-scale anonymous survey is aimed at male and female business owners to assess their self-image, business knowledge and processes. Using a “dual scaling model”, we aim to determine how aligned business owners are with this dependent variable statement: “My business is extremely successful.” All questions in this survey will be measured against this dependent variable. The questions will attempt to gauge business owners’ understanding and belief of their success based on various factors including annual revenue, workplace policies and R&D strategies. The survey will be targeted at both men and women to determine specific trends in gender. Please see this link to fill out the survey now.
Fill out the survey today!
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