Women founders in a high-tech incubator: negotiating entrepreneurial identity in the Indian socio-cultural context
International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship
ISSN: 1756-6266
Article publication date: 29 June 2021
Issue publication date: 27 October 2021
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to understand the socio-cultural context of Indian women's high-tech entrepreneurial experience. Despite a small proportion of women entrepreneurs, and the traditional gender dynamics among the educated middle-classes that appears to be antithetical to female entrepreneurship; women-led high-tech start-ups are on the rise.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with women founders at an academic incubator in an elite Indian Institute of Technology. The study was based on the post-structural feminist approach that women entrepreneurs are embedded in their socio-cultural and institutional context. During data collection, the Coronavirus lockdown provided a natural experiment, highlighting entrepreneurial response to unforeseen obstacles.
Findings
It finds that the context is significant in constructing opportunity, and in navigating challenges of gender and entrepreneurship. Further, in the process of construction of an entrepreneurial identity, women innovators not only reproduce, but also modify their context. Also, the experiences with academic incubator indicate positive results both for gender dynamics and enhancing an emergent entrepreneurial culture.
Practical implications
The study highlights that women's high-tech entrepreneurship has considerable potential for enhancing women's status in society through the support of academic incubator. This has certain implications for policy.
Originality/value
It provides an insight in to the hitherto neglected issue of women's high-tech entrepreneurship in India, and argues that a study of “social embeddedness” not only highlights constraints for women entrepreneurs unique to that context, but also the potential of women's entrepreneurship in advancing women's agency and gender equality.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study would not have been possible without the consent of Professor-in-charge at SIIC, Professor Amitabh Bandyopadhyay and cooperation of SIIC team members, especially Dr. Rohini Ghosh and Ms. Sudha Selvaraj. The authors are grateful to all the participants who spared their invaluable time for this study.
Citation
Gupta, N. and Etzkowitz, H. (2021), "Women founders in a high-tech incubator: negotiating entrepreneurial identity in the Indian socio-cultural context", International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 353-372. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJGE-11-2020-0181
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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