Leading the Way: Strategies to Break Down Gender Bias in STEM and EntrepreneurshipJanet Daisley, VentureWellNathalie Duval-Couetil, Purdue UniversityMary Juhas, Ohio State UniversityDiane Matt, Women in Engineering ProActive NetworkAri Turrentine, VentureWell

Ari TurrentineResearch and Evaluation Analyst

VentureWell

Diversity > Homogeneity (Page, 2007)

Women owned companies… • Grow 2X faster• Bring in $3 trillion annually• Produce 23 million jobs

Women’s inventions address… • Health, poverty, and education

(Center for Women’s Business Research, 2009; Rosser, 2009; Donna et al. 2013)

Activity % Women Involved

Venture Founders 12%

Engineering Workforce 15%

Full Professor in Engineering 9%

Tenured and Tenure Track Engineering Faculty Combined 17%

Associate Professors of Engineering 16%

Assistant Professors of Engineering 23%

Doctorate in Engineering 22%

(Census Bureau, 2013; Yoder, 2014; Fogel, 2013; National Center for Education Statistics, 2012; NSF, 2015)

Gender Discrimination

Behavioral & Attitudinal Factors

Work-Life Balance & Networks

Training

Gender Discrimination

Resource Discrimination: Differences in salary, laboratory size, funding, award nominations, startup packages, etc. (Census, 2013; MIT, 1999)

Negative Organizational Climate: Perceptions of the organization’s policies, practices, and procedures. (Callister, 2006; Fox, 2010; Settles, Cortina, Malley, & Stewart, 2006)

Sexual Harassment: Happens more frequently in workplaces where there are power disparities between lower and upper levels of the organization. (Ilies, Hauserman, Schwochau, & Stibal, 2003)

Behavioral & Attitudinal Factors

Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy: Women in science, w/o relevant training tend to underestimate their skills in relation/comparison to men with comparable qualifications Wilson, Kickul & Marlino (2007).; Zhao, Seibert, & Hills (2005)

Risk Aversion: Women are more risk averse, especially when it comes to finances. (Charness & Gneezy, 2012; Ranga& Etzkowitz, 2010)

Productivity: When external factors are controlled for, men and women faculty have similar rates of productivity. (Whittington& Smith-Doerr, 2005; Colyvas et. Al, 2012; Fox & Colatrella, 2006; Shauman & Xie, 2003)

Work-Life Balance & Networks

“…[women scientists] are faced with the dilemma of synchronizing the often-conflicting demands of three clocks: the biological clock, the career clock (as in timetables for tenure) and a spouse's career clock”. (Sonnert & Holton, 1996)

Women faculty are not included in discussions, social networks, scientific communities, or scientific culture. (Fox, 2010; Murray & Graham, 2007)

Training

Women engineering and science faculty have less experience and training in academic commercialization largely due to barriers such as gender discrimination, behavioral and attitudinal factors, work-life balance issues, and exclusion from networks.

(Polkowska, 2013; Rosser, 2009; Sanberg et al, 2014; Stephan & ElGanainy, 2006, Thursby & Thursby, 2005; Whittington, 2008)

Diane MattExecutive Director, WEPAN

(Women in Engineering Pro-Active Network)

How WEPAN Transforms Culture in Engineering

March 20, 2015

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WEPAN – Leading Champion for Inclusion of Women in EngineeringSustainable, systemic inclusionInclusion propels innovation, business performanceEveryone can help build inclusive culture in engineering

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WEPAN Uses a Four Frame

Change Model

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Three Initiatives that Advance Inclusion

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WEPAN Change Leader ForumYou’re Invited!

High value opportunity to connect with other leadersAs a male faculty member…immensely helpful to understand challenges and issues, research, and efforts

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C. Diane MattWEPAN Executive Director

www.wepan.orgwww.wepanknoweldgecenter.org

dmatt@wepan.org303-871-4643

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Dr. Mary JuhasAssociate Vice President for Gender Initiatives in STEMM,

Ohio State

Nathalie Duval-CouetilAssociate Professor, Technology, Leadership & Innovation

Director, Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program

Why I am interested in this? • Lower participation of women in

entrepreneurship program and activities

• Proactive in addressing this through programming

• Developed and taught courses on the topic– Undergrad: Women and Leadership– Graduate: Contemporary Gender Issues in Leadership and

Technology

• Often teaching/preaching to the converted

• Stuff happens to me everyday…

Research has examined:

self-efficacy career

intentions discourse and

messaging

Perceived Ability for Entrepreneurship

Answer to question: How would you rate your overall ability for entrepreneurship?Males generally rate their abilities more highly than the self-ratings of females. (G2=87.54, p<0.001, n=2664)

Excellent Above Average Average Below Average0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

6%

37%48%

8%11%

50% 35%

4%

Multidisciplinary Students Enrolled in an Entrepreneurship Course

Females Males

Duval-Couetil*, N. & Gotch, C.†, Yi, S.† (2014, November). The characteristics and motivations of contemporary entrepreneurship students. Journal of Education for Business. 28(8), 441-449.

Technology Venturing Self-Efficacy ScaleEngineering Entrepreneurship Students – Significant Differences by Gender

Recruit the right employees for a new project or venture

Convert a useful scientific advance into a practical application

Convince a customer or client to try a new product for the first time

Understand exactly what is new and important in a groundbreaking theoretical article

Develop your own original hypothesis and a research plan to test it

Design and build something new that performs very close to your design specifications

Grasp the concept and limits of a technology well enough to see the best ways to use it

Translate user needs into requirements for a design so well that users will like the outcome

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Females Males

Duval-Couetil*, N., Reed-Rhoads, T. & Haghighi, S.† (2012). Engineering students and entrepreneurship education: Involvement, attitudes and outcomes. International Journal of Engineering Education 28(2), 425-435.Scale: Lucas, Cooper, Ward, Cave, 2009, Technovation

Level of confidence

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Career Intentions from “Personal Business Plans”

Gender E-ship Corporate Work

Female Number (Total=31) Percent

1420%

1744%

Male Number (Total=79) Percent

5780%

2256%

Total 71 39

Percentage 65% 35%

Gender had a statistically significant, medium effect: X2 (1) = 7.087, p = .008, Φ = .25

What literature says – Flaws in Research Focus

• The practice of reporting statistically significant differences between gender which ignore similarities (Ahl, 2006)

• Results of differences on mean responses, which are “overblown as regards to their practical impact” and … extrapolated without merit to the global population of women launching new ventures” (Nelson & Duffy, 2010)

Millennial attitudes toward entrepreneurship

Students from a variety of majors (both STEM and non-STEM majors) were asked to draw an entrepreneur. Explanations they gave of the sketches were overwhelmingly constructed as male, white-collar, and often high-tech oriented.

Dohrman, R. L. (2010). Making sense of high-tech entrepreneurial careers: The meaning (s) and materialities of work for young adults (Doctoral dissertation, PURDUE UNIVERSITY).

Draw-an-Entrepreneur Test

Draw-an-Entrepreneur Test

“Male entrepreneur selling a product or service to a happy female consumer.”

Dohrman, R. L. (2010). Making sense of high-tech entrepreneurial careers: The meaning (s) and materialities of work for young adults (Doctoral dissertation, Purdue University).

Media, Society, Images, DiscourseAnalysis of Shark Tank Season 1– 15 episodes, 90 individuals pitched– 10 of 90 participants were other than White– 33 were female– Males secured highest number deals – 61% versus

females (31%) and male/female teams (9%)– Men asked for 63% more money than women

Analysis of discourse– Women did not self-identify as entrepreneur– Sharks less likely to identify women participants as

entrepreneurs– Women identified as mom, housewife, hobbyist and

often filmed in kitchens for backstories

Messages• Entrepreneurs are

usually White• Women are not

“real” entrepreneurs• Old people are not

entrepreneurs• Entrepreneurship is

an American activity

Wheadon, M. Anyone can be an entrepreneur – But not on Reality Television: An examination of the media representation of entrepreneurs on Season 1 of Shark Tank (publication in progress)

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Proactive in educational initiatives

What literature says:

One size fits all might not be appropriate

More gender neutral curricula including cases, projects, and business opportunities that “draw from a variety of industries, business niches, and strategic choices in business and not-for-profits led by a more diverse and inclusive set of entrepreneurial protagonists” (Gatewood et al., 2004).

• Educated academic advisors via mailings and presentations

• Created gender and leadership course

• Raised awareness among entrepreneurship faculty

• Hired female entrepreneurship faculty

• Talked about it – a lot!

Female participation went from 24% to 34% in one year!

How we increased participation in undergraduate program

At Graduate LevelContemporary Gender Issues In Leadership and Technology Course– ¾ PhD males involved in NSF IGERT in Chemical and

Electrical and Computer Engineering– 7 weeks, 3 hours per week

Topics and activities– Bias: implicit, explicit, in society, STEM, academia, industry,

in hiring, evaluation, and promotion– Assignments: Observation journals, interviews with males

and females within same work contexts, reflection papers

Select Outcome DataWas this course different than you expected? If so, in what way(s)?• It was totally different than what I expected. To be honest, I was expecting a repetition

of what I already know or observe. The course was very eye-opening. The class discussions and selected articles were very carefully crafted. We had the opportunity to explore the gender issue and moreover empathize with women in industry and academia. After the class I really feel responsible to take action in my career about the gender issue.

Do you have any suggestions on how to get more Ph.D. students in STEM disciplines to take such a class?• It should be required like a lab safety class. Purdue is proud of being a equal access

equal opportunity class. If students are not aware of the inequalities or missed opportunities than it is pointless to be proud of that motto. Purdue, especially STEM disciplines since it is the core of the university, has the responsibility to raise awareness on gender issues. There is serious ignorance and avoidance issue in gender topic.

• Maybe if it is advertised as a professional development course more than a gender issues course more males will be interested.

• Getting the faculty interested in the course, so they will advise their students to take it.• I believe the only way to get more STEM PhD students in the class is to make it

mandatory.

ChallengesScaling these initiatives– Resources, curricular constraints, elective versus

mandatory

Minimal incentive to address a problem you don’t see or experienceSocietal/environmental messages are strongCalibrating how much attention to draw to these issues

Questions from the Audience?