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This research seeks to better understand the experiences of African American female entrepreneurs using a price-based, dialectical approach. Through 20 interviews with African American female entrepreneurs about their experiences of managing, marketing, and obtaining business financing, the costs and benefits they experienced as entrepreneurs are explored. Using grounded theory, the interviews were analyzed and four price-based dialectics emerged: (1) Changing self vs. Maintaining self, (2) Being distrustful of others vs. Being faithful and trusting in God, (3) Weak support from own ethnicity vs. Strong supportive ethnic identity, and (4) Being halted by others' perceptions vs. Moving forward despite pre-conceived notions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores internal motivations o f entrepreneurship through identifying self-characteristics and probing self-discrepancies. A content analysis process examined interviews with 20 African American female entrepreneurs, and identified 259 self-characteristics from participants ' own standpoint and 94 self-characteristics from others 'standpoint. Coding results reveal entrepreneurs describe themselves with positive self-characteristics, not associated with their race or gender. Nearly the opposite was true when entrepreneurs mentioned self-characteristics from others' standpoint, which were more negative and had greater mentions o f ethnicity and gender. Results suggest self-discrepancies exist in the content o f self-characteristics and in the negativity that entrepreneurs associate with how they are perceived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]