Womenpreneurs: 21st Century Success Strategies Dorothy Perrin Moore

WOMENPRENEURS: 21st CENTURY SUCCESS STRATEGIES DOROTHY PERRIN MOOREReviewing this book was a particularly daunting task, not only because of the respect I have for the author's accomplishments as a leading scholar on the subject of women and management, but also due to the wide variety of topics she chose to address in one volume. Moreover, there were seventeen case studies of outstanding women who are all worth mentioning and chapters which contain valuable practical advice taken from research which is meticulously referenced.Dorothy Perrin Moore is an internationally respected scholar who has dedicated her entire career to the advancement of women in management. WomenPreneurs: 21st Century Success Strategies brings together three decades of research that clearly achieves the purpose of integrating theory with contemporary practice. The target markets for the book include the following: 1) academics teaching courses in management, entrepreneurship, human resource management, and gender and diversity and professional development directors; 2) working women and those interested in advancing their professional careers; and 3) women entrepreneurs at all stages of venture development. This is Moore's third book and she draws from the experiences of over 350 women she has interviewed in the past to include seventeen case studies of phenomenally successful women whose professional accomplishments are impressive and inspirational.WomenPreneurs covers a broad array of contemporary topics relevant to women in management and is organized in five chapters: 1) The New Work Landscape; 2) Organizations: Leadership and Management; 3) Work, Life and Career Strategies; 4) On the Road to Entrepreneurship; and 5) Preparing for the Future. In Chapter One, Moore makes a case for the numerous drivers of change that impacted the workplace over the past several decades. These include organizational restructuring since the mid-2008 recession, the erosion of trust between business and society, increased importance of teamwork, increasing employee diversity and the development of innovative leadership styles.Citing the influx of women as a notable trend, Moore provides the case study of Gail K. Naughton, Founder and CEO of Histogen. Naughton holds over 100 patents and served as the Dean of the College of Business at San Diego State University. Her secret to managerial success? Naughton commented, "If you believe in what you want to do, what others think doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if people put up road blocks, or tell you it's impossible; if you're doing what you believe in and think it is right, sooner or later they'll come around." Likewise, Nikki Hardin, Founder and Publisher of Skirt® Magazine commented about her amazing career transition, "What is looking for me? Looking back, I can see that all the while the field was being prepared in the darkness, the seeds being planted.... Something is looking for me as intensely as I am looking for it." Moore's book is chock full of reflective tidbits of advice from these high achieving women who exhibit intelligence, creativity, courage, persistence, vision and risk-taking.What makes these stories all the more amazing is the fact that women are not playing on as level a playing field as men, as there still remains considerable challenges for opportunity and advancement. Performance metrics that favor men, unfavorable organizational environments, and lack of core opportunities that lead to advancement were some of the issues women encountered. Moore summarized Barbara Bird (2010) stating "Glass ceilings, glass escalators that move men up faster, the glass cliffs of being chosen for high-risk leadership positions in times of crises, and the glass walls of staffand other sidetracking assignments. These are some of the invisible, systemic and hard to prove barriers that women (and minorities) face." I couldn't agree with this statement more, and yet so many girls and young women are clueless about the career challenges they will encounter. …