Business Entrepreneur Stories

Exporting: Tied to home.
Canadian women may be among the most entrepreneurial in the OECD, but they”re still backward when it comes to exporting their products and services. Indeed, females lead only 12% of the Canadian small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) that export, reports a new study by the University of Ottawa”s Telfer School of Management and Industry Canada.

But enticing more women to export isn”t rocket science, says Barbara Orser, co-author of the report Gender and Export Propensity. Government agencies, such as Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, and trade organizations could be more proactive in promoting the benefits of selling abroad to female business owners by including them in case studies and recruiting more women as mentors. Exporting offers great growth opportunities especially in the oft-disregarded female-friendly services sector but many women tend to dismiss it, either because they don”t know enough about it or feel they may face gender barriers.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Business Entrepreneurs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.