Influence of social and demographic factors on business management methods used by women and men illustrated on example of Wielkopolska region

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine relations between the selected social and demographic factors associated with a businessperson and the way he or she manages a small or medium-sized company. With respect to how a company is managed, it can be described by its goals, profit allocation, the use of EU funds, the credit facilities, and the Internet. As regards the socio-demographic factors relating to a business’ owner, they include education, age, marital status, and the number of children. Finally, the factors relating to a business itself include its size and a number of years on the market, the size of a city or town that the company operates in, and also whether it is a family company. The study of relations between the aforementioned factors has been preceded by an analysis of how businesses are managed by women and men. This paper is based on the empirical material gathered by means of questionnaires in 143 companies managed by women, and 158 companies managed by men, representing the sector of small and medium enterprises in the Wielkopolska region. The questionnaires were distributed by the first-year students of a master degree programme at the Poznań University of Economics as a part of their entrepreneurship course. The research was conducted in 2011 and the collected information concerning the companies and their methods of management refers to the years 2007-2010. The research material was analysed using the relations of quantitative and qualitative characteristics. The chi-squared test, the test of significance for two or more average values (Student’s t-test), and variation analysis (Scheffé’s test) were carried out. A significance level that was assumed for the content-related verification of hypotheses equalled to α = 0.05