The literature surrounding gender differences and management style in the SME sector provides disparate results. While early studies (Maupin, 1990; Powell, 1993) suggest that there are few real differences in leadership styles between men and women, others have identified a number of important differences. Carter & Cannon (1992), for example, found that female owner managers were less confident, less aggressive and lacking in problem-solving abilities than males, while Waldstrom & Madson (2007) found that females adopt the same approaches to management as males. Verheul, Risseeuw, & Bartelse (2002) and Mcgregor & Tweed (2001) found that female managers of SMEs were more relaxed with giving instructions to staffthrough informal conversation than their male counterparts. While the male managers stressed the role and use of power, female managers stressed the importance ofinterpersonal communication. Both studies also found that female owner/managers were more likely to hire external expertise and were more inclined to develop business strategies that were specific to their particular business than their male counterparts. One interesting finding was reported by Mohr & Wolfram (2008). This was that listeners showed less irritation to male communication than female communication.
Studies in Sweden (Sandberg 2003) and New Zealand (Mcgregor & Tweed, 2001) showed that female owner managers:
• paid more attention to business-to-business links than males
• paid more attention to strategic alliances than males
• were more mindful of both their customers and their staff than were male managers
• were significantly better at dealing with the details of the day-to-day business
• were far more aware and capable of managing budgets than their male counterparts