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Becoming self-employed has appeal to both genders. For many women, balancing work and family is a key motivator. However, businesses owned and operated by women are often very small, with limited turnover. This potentially can have disastrous consequences when these women come to retire, unless a solid retirement savings strategy has been considered. The purpose of this paper is to outline many of the issues and implications of a lack of research in this area.

Data were collected from 201 small business owners via a convenience sample derived from various databases. The survey was completed on-line and analysed using SPSS.

Many self-employed women in Australia have neither enough savings for their retirement, or an actual retirement plan. This is exacerbated by the lack of regulation requiring mandatory contributions into a superannuation (personal pension) fund by small business owners, unlike pay as you go employees, whose employers must contribute a certain about on their behalf.

Middle-to-older aged women are the biggest cohort of homeless people in Australia. This is likely to grow as self-employed Baby Boomers stop working and find they do not have sufficient personal financial resources to fund their retirement.

Whereas there is much written about gender and small business ownership, as well as retirement and savings planning, these two areas have not been researched before in Australia. Yet it is an issue for the majority of small business owners, particularly women.

For the last ten years there has been substantial encouragement for women to broaden their career horizons and enter into non‐traditional areas of work. In the mining industry in particular, women now work as geologists, surveyors, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, environmental scientists, chemical engineers, and production workers, in some of the most remote and hostile locations in Australia. Given the strategic role of the mining industry within the Australian economy, and the resources which individuals, organizations and governments have already invested in training and development, one would expect that these women could look forward to a long and productive future in the industry. Instead, many younger women in particular are considering leaving the industry. In 1991 Commonwealth funding was made available by WREIP for a research project on women in mining. Based on data derived from a workshop based on this research, this article examines the reasons why women are considering deserting a workplace which they strove so hard to enter. It considers issues such as the implications of ineffective management practices, particularly within the context of career development; the implications of management failure to acknowledge the “genderedness” of organizations; and the limitations of current equal employment opportunity and affirmative action legislation to produce the necessary structural and attitudinal changes.

In 1992 the Australian Federal Government established an Industry Task Force on Leadership and Management Skills to make recommendations for improving the skills of managers. The task force commissioned the production of a core MBA curriculum unit on Effective Organizations: Gender Issues in Management. Although gender stereotyping has not traditionally been considered as a strategic business issue within MBA programmes, this topic was considered a critical component of the development of leadership and management skills, and a fundamental element in the drive towards greater organizational effectiveness. In developing the unit, the researchers identified both a reluctance and lack of preparedness on the part of both academics and industry management to deal with these issues. The resulting package therefore recognizes the sensitivities associated with the subject, and the difficulties of addressing gender issues in management. It also offers a range of delivery options, and has potential for uptake in countries other than Australia. Briefly describes the origins, focus and content of the package produced for the task force in 1994, and discusses the implications of the material for the career development of women managers.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Many people assume that those who own their own business must be good with money. Sure, for those who lose their businesses multiple times, then that assumption will disappear pretty quickly. However, when looking at a friend or relative who is a small business owner (SBO), and admiring their large house, garage full of cars, or expensive holidays, the last thing we might think is that they are profligate in any way.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Preventative health services are keen to identify how to engage men and increase their participation, thus improving health, well-being and life expectancy over time. Prior research has shown general gender norms are a key reason for men’s avoidance of these services, yet there is little investigation of specific gender norms. Furthermore, masculinity has not been examined as a factor associated with customer vulnerability. This paper aims to identify the relationship between gender norm segments for men, likely customer vulnerability over time and subjective health and well-being.

Adult males (n = 13,891) from an Australian longitudinal men’s health study were classified using latent class analysis. Conditional growth mixture modelling was conducted at three timepoints.

Three masculinity segments were identified based on masculine norm conformity: traditional self-reliant, traditional bravado and modern status. All segments had likely customer experience of vulnerability. Over time, the likely experience was temporary for the modern status segment but prolonged for the traditional self-reliant and traditional bravado segments. The traditional self-reliant segment had low subjective health and low overall well-being over time.

Practitioners can tailor services to gender norm segments, enabling self-reliant men to provide expertise and use the “Status” norm to reach all masculinity segments.

The study of customer vulnerability in a group usually considered privileged identifies differential temporal experiences based on gender norms. The study confirms customer vulnerability is temporal in nature; customer vulnerability changes over time from likely to actual for self-reliant men.