In the face of multiple gender roles, this article aims to discuss the conflicting demands experienced by women entrepreneurs and the strategies they use to cope with them. Content analysis of interviews carried out with women business owners reveals three categories of conflicting situations: conflicts at work; family-work conflicts; conflicts between work and personal demands. The main strategies these women use in order to oppose the conflicting situations are: self-organization of time; establishment of partnerships and complicity; and stress alleviation mechanisms. In the light of gender entrepreneurship literature, data indicates that women entrepreneurs innovate when confronting with dilemmas, introducing changes in the professional, family and personal context.
women's entrepreneurship; work-family conflict; gender and work