The University of Michigan Business School/eePulse Research Study results show sales and employment projections improve highest gains from women business owners.

Women business owners outscored Fortune 1000, NASDAQ firm executives and other leaders in the pace at which they expect to grow both sales and number of employees over the next month in this month's 2003 Leadership Pulse, a research project conducted by the University of Michigan Business School and eePulse, Inc.

Consisting of five, short questions, the Web-based Pulse Survey is sent out to thousands of worldwide executives on a monthly basis to measure the effects of key resources and confidence levels on overall business growth and performance. Samples of Fortune 1000 executives, top NASDAQ firms and women business owners were recently added to the survey.

A review of the trend data shows that all of the groups surveyed expect increased sales and less reductions in staff in the next month. However, the women business owners who responded to the survey scored 71 on "sales" and 34 on "employment" compared to averages of 62 on "sales" and 26 on "employment" for the other leadership groups. The women business owner scores may be higher due to the fact that, overall, these firms are smaller than other organizations or that they have unique growth strategy plans that non-women owned businesses do not have.

In the August Leadership Pulse, participants also were asked about their confidence in the overall economic climate. Data shows that confidence improved in August, with a five point increase since the same question was last asked in June, 2003. Of the survey respondents, 44% were C-core jobs (CEO, CFO, CTO, etc.), 17% were in VP roles, and the remainder were directors, managers or professionals.

Respondents were also asked how problems with ethics, lack of credibility and trust are affecting their business and what they are doing to minimize problems. 27% of total respondents said ethics issues were not a serious problem for them. Of the firms that did report ethics causing problems, the two most frequently cited issues were:

• More work from management team in terms of reporting, training and more

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• Reduced employee trust and confidence, leading to morale problems and lower productivity

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The second question asked leaders to share the top three things that cause a firm to stumble, and the leading themes were:

• Vision - Not having or communicating a vision properly

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• Execution - Not executing, planning or changing a vision or strategy when necessary

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• Leadership - Lack of leadership or poor, unethical leadership lacking trust

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"Our analysis allows us to study the data by looking at both overall means and by analyzing the Within Person Change score, and in every analysis, this month's results show strong anticipated improvement in sales and employment," states Theresa Welbourne, Ph.D., Samuel Zell & Robert Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Michigan Business School Adjunct Associate Professor and eePulse, Inc. CEO. "As the study progresses and we both add new samples in addition to studying trend data, we hope to share key leadership insights that will help both practicing managers and students who are pursuing business careers."

Individual leaders who wish to be included in the Leadership Pulse study can contact Dr. Welbourne or the research team at eePulse at 734.996.2321. A website is available for those organizations that would like to have up to 50 senior leaders participate in the study. If a company participates with multiple executives, it will receive a personalized company report each month and be able to compare their company results to those of the overall sample and various public sub-samples. If interested in expanded participation for an organization, please visit the following web site: www.umbs.leadership.eepulse.com.