The relationship between networking, stages of women's psychosocial development, and securing government contracts by women business owners in Virginia

The purpose of this survey study was to examine the personal and business characteristics of women business owners at their different stages of women's psychosocial development. It further investigated the relationship between the women business owner's utilization of government procurement information and their securing of government contracts, stages of women's psychosocial development, and social and business networks. Relationships were examined using chi-square analyses (p ;The survey response rate was 71%. Participants in the sample (n = 401) were certified as Women Business Enterprises in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Sixty-six percent of those (n = 263) sought government contracts.;Stages of women's psychosocial development were differentiated by age according to Levinson's (1996) life cycle structure for women. Women business owners have diverse and complex lives. They make decisions that foster personal achievement and affiliation, the well being of their family, and their business development. The women business owners' major social concern was family relationships. Their major business concern was marketing.;The results indicated a statistically significant relationship between the women business owners' stages of women's psychosocial development and age of children, marital status, social concerns, stress, age of business, working at other jobs, gross revenues, and portion of household income provided by the woman business owner. Factors not related to stages of women's psychosocial development were ethnic background, levels of education, type of business, number of employees, having a home office, number of hours worked per week, business concerns, reasons for owning a business, and numbers of personal and business contacts in their networks.;Neither the use of social and business networks, nor stages of women's psychosocial development were related to utilization of government procurement information. Descriptive results indicated that women business owners in this sample who sought government contracts had an approximately 50% chance of success at each level of government, Federal, state, or local. When seeking contracts from more than one level of government, their chance for success was 76%.;Statistically significant relationships were found between securing government contracts and the use of (1) government networks and (2) referrals from outside governments. The more people in government the women talked with about procurement the more likely they were to secure a contract. Responding to referrals about government contracts from people outside of government resulted in an 82% rate of securing government contracts.;Implications of the research are discussed for women business owners, personal and business counselors, educators and trainers, and government personnel who develop procurement policies.