Mom Knows Best

MSNBC:

When it comes to family-owned businesses, fathers and sons have long been considered the classic entrepreneurial team. But the explosive growth of women-owned businesses has paved the way for a new breed of entrepreneurial pairing: mother-daughter businesses. Although no concrete statistics have been compiled for the number of mother-daughter businesses nationwide, family-business experts say their ranks are definitely growing.

Experts point out that over the past decade, there has been a shift in the cultural environment of the workplace, and women have gradually received more acceptance as business leaders. From 1997 to 2006, the number of women-owned businesses increased 42.3 percent — almost twice the rate of growth for all U.S. firms, according to the most recent data from the Census Bureau. Today, the United States is home to an estimated 7.7 million women-owned businesses.

“Women have proven themselves in the working environment,” says Kurt Glassman, co-founder and president of Leadership One, a Sacramento, Calif.-based consulting firm for family businesses. “Just because you’re a man doesn’t mean that you’re the best-qualified person to run the business anymore.”

As a result, many children now perceive their mothers as role models in the business world, according to Glassman. “Daughters are seeing from their mothers that you can have it all,” he says.