ABSTRACT
The business innovations initiated by the minority women in the study are not primarily directed towards increasing the profitability of their businesses. The innovations, like the enterprises themselves, are reflections of the gender identification and minority status of the entrepreneur. Business innovations are quintessentially entrepreneurial because they represent a new conceptualization of business. Though the minority women entrepreneurs create products and policies that respond to social needs, most also run their businesses for profit and not all the profit is turned back to the business. It is rare that the minority women interviewed and describe their business in social terms or identify themselves as anything other than traditional business owners. Though the minority women-owned businesses featured in our research certainly have a component of social entrepreneurship, they might or might not formally codify that responsibility in a mission statement, and none of them report that they are attempting to make a need disappear.
