In the first part of this series we introduced the findings of a new study conducted by Kathryn Stafford, Ohio State University, along with Sharon Danes and Johnben Loy of the University of Minnesota. Their results appear in the October 2007 issue of the Journal of Business Research. The study explored the differences in family-owned businesses according to the gender of the company head. Among other things, this study showed that women who put in more weekly hours did tend to have higher gross revenues than women who put in less time, she said. The fact that few women took the option to boost their working hours shows they may have different goals. “The results indicate that women feel they have better alternatives than simply putting more time into their business,” Stafford said. “They want to spend time with their families outside of work.” The difference in how men and women balance work-family demands was seen in another, somewhat odd result. Findings showed that when women managers reported sleeping less, their gross revenue increased. But when men reported sleeping less, revenues decreased. Stafford said one way to interpret that result is that men only resort to sleeping less when their business is in serious trouble, while women do it as a matter of course to manage both their family and business.
“Societal demands on men are different. They can spend less time with the family to help their business and that is OK,” Stafford said. “They only lose sleep as a last resort, when problems at work are consuming all their time.” Women, however, may be losing sleep because they want to make sure the business succeeds, but don't want to spend less time with their family. Some business practices also had varying effects depending on the gender of the manager. Most striking was the fact that women saw a much greater increase in revenue than did men as a result of the time they spent on personnel management – such things as setting performance standards, evaluating employee performance, and motivating workers. Stafford said part of that finding may be because women tend to be involved in businesses, such as retail, in which sales are dependent on how well employees deal with customers. In that case, employee relations take on added importance. “Overall, we found that gender and family roles play an important part in how family businesses are managed,” Stafford said. “The interaction between family and business is complicated, and men and women seem to have different ways of managing the relationship.” | 
