Competition is key: That the finding of a new study from Girls With Impact, a nonprofit organization dedicated to equipping girls to launch and lead projects and businesses.
Many girls lack opportunities to work as a team and to compete as they grow and learn—and the omission often carries over into young adulthood, higher education, and the business world. According to the survey, only 22 percent of students in venture competitions in business school were women—even though when they did compete, they thrived: Top-ranking teams had women founders and CEOs 51 and 32 percent of the time, respectively.
Click through to read more on the importance of competition, as well as how role models can influence girls and women to compete, the role of confidence and underrepresentation, and why thriving in competitions can help women succeed in business.
There’s long been Girls Scouts and sports, but too many young women aren’t exposed to teamwork and competition at an early age, and that will hurt them as they seek jobs in a shifting workplace. The problem is not limited to girls in middle and high school. A new study of female business students shows that women don’t opt into what is being judged by their own professors and corporate hiring managers as the most important part of B-school education: not books, but competitions.
Women represented just 22 percent of students participating in venture competitions, but when they do compete, female students succeed. Of the ranking teams (first, second and third place) in competitions, 51 percent had a woman founder and 32 percent had a woman CEO.
The study from Girls with Impact included data on six years of college venture competitions in which there were 1,454 participants and 535 teams comprised of student from freshman to Ph.D level. across three universities — University of Connecticut, UCLA and Rice University.
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