Guest editorial: New perspectives on women’s entrepreneurship in China: identity negotiation, gender agency, and meaning-making

Citation

Han, L., Song, J. and Aaltio, I. (2024), "Guest editorial: New perspectives on women’s entrepreneurship in China: identity negotiation, gender agency, and meaning-making", Gender in Management, Vol. 39 No. 7, pp. 849-860. https://doi.org/10.1108/GM-10-2024-471

Introduction

Chinese women have been increasingly active in entrepreneurship, yet current research has not fully captured this dynamic growth. This special issue (SI) aims to fill that gap by examining new forms, experiences and meaning-making processes of women’s entrepreneurship in China through a critical gender lens. The collection showcases studies of women entrepreneurs and leaders who challenge gender stereotypes, navigate gender compromises and adopt innovative approaches, thereby enriching the understanding of gender and entrepreneurship in the Chinese context. This special issue goes beyond past studies on women’s entrepreneurship in China, which often focus on individual gender characteristics or specific institutional contexts as the main factors for why women start a business, how they deal with gendered obstacles and why they adopt certain managerial practices (Hussain et al., 2010; Chen, 2012; Li et al., 2013; Osburg, 2013; Aaltio and Huang, 2018). Instead, it offers a more nuanced perspective and reveals a more complex decision-making process for women entering, navigating and reflecting on entrepreneurship to highlight the diverse nature of women’s businesses in China.

Before introducing the original purpose and aim of the special issue, we begin with an anecdote shared by the first author about an event she attended during the pandemic. The event focused on research and innovation developments in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) in China, a southern megalopolis aiming to become a global technology and innovation hub. During the Q&A session, the first author asked the panel if they observed any differences between male and female startup founders in different GBA cities and if there were specific programs targeting female founders, given the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology’s initiative to support more women in technological entrepreneurship. The question was dismissed by one of the panelists, an Associate Dean from the Faculty of Engineering, who stated that he did not like the question, asserting that “talent is talent.” Another male panelist, a director of the university’s office for research developments, added that funding and support in China often favor “innocent young girls” (wu zhi shao nv), a Chinese acronym referring to women who are highly educated, being an ethnic minority or with no direct affiliation with the Chinese Communist Party (Chen, 2022). This incident inspired the idea for this special issue. The responses from the panel highlights the prevalence of culturally specific gender norms, including beliefs in merit-based evaluations in male-dominated entrepreneurial fields like technology and engineering and suspicions about women’s ambivalent role related to tokensim or favoritism. It also underscores women’s persistent intersectional challenges when pursuing the seemingly meritocratic career path. Although women are encouraged to participate in “massive entrepreneurship and innovation” campaigns, women continue to encounter gender stereotypes and social pressures under a mix of neoliberal discourses and traditional values (Tang and Song, 2024). To navigate the conflicting feelings of empowerment and ambivalence in entrepreneurship, women need to develop strategies to effectively manage this tension (Han, 2024).

The original intent of the special issue aims to break down the boundaries between feminized and masculinized businesses, challenge gender stereotypes in entrepreneurship and enrich our understanding of women’s evolving roles and strategies in a market of increasing uncertainties. We also hope to include more studies of gender in management and the emerging leadership styles of female entrepreneurs in the booming digital and social economies in Greater China. In the era of the digital economy and technological advancement, women may find new ways of doing business while facing new obstacles and constraints in both public and private spheres. This special issue intends to go beyond the dichotomy of gendered career choices between risk-taking and risk-averse jobs to illustrate how women make new breakthroughs against gender discrimination in business and societal expectations of gender roles. It also explores how women redefine their entrepreneurial agency in an ever-changing market and society.

The collection of articles represents the emerging trends and new forms of women’s entrepreneurship in China, considering the impacts of market-oriented reforms, government promotion of innovation and the growth of the Internet economy and digital platforms. While previous studies have highlighted gender differences in entrepreneurship, there is limited understanding of gender and class-based factors shaping women’s entrepreneurial agency and experiences, concerning the effects of their different backgrounds, skill sets, family resources and social connections, and the complicated interaction of women’s roles in private and public spheres. These variations are influenced by a mix of patriarchal traditions, socialist legacies and market forces in China. This collection offers a timely examination of gender and entrepreneurship, as suggested by diverse and fluid forms of femininity in the field of business in the Chinese context. It sheds light on the practical needs and challenges faced by female entrepreneurs and provides insights for policymakers and the public on the evolving entrepreneurial landscape. The issue also has broader social implications for gender equality, work-family dynamics and sustainable development.

Before discussing each article in this special issue, we provide a review of the current field of women’s entrepreneurship studies in China, including the continuous gendered negotiation of identities and work-family struggles for female entrepreneurs and the rising gender and feminist consciousness on digital platforms as an untapped driver for women’s entrepreneurship. The findings not only point to how women exert different forms of agency in negotiating entrepreneurship but also illustrate how they make sense of their business activities and construct social meanings from their nonconventional careers.

Women’s entrepreneurship in China and beyond

Situating women’s entrepreneurship in the changing government policies to promote entrepreneurship and the rising feminist consciousness, the special issue pays particular attention to women’s agency in navigating the unique gendered structural constraints and opportunities to partake in an entrepreneurial path in China (Cooke and Xiao, 2021). While entrepreneurship has been loosely defined as starting a business or embodying risk-taking spirits, scholars continue to find that women’s entrepreneurship is often regarded as a lesser or alternative version compared with men’s business (Gartner, 1990; Bruni et al., 2004).

This special issue moves beyond the androcentric model of business and defines entrepreneurship as activities and efforts to embrace market opportunities and take economic risks to pursue profits. In this sphere, women are not essentially disadvantaged but may be motivated to use entrepreneurship to fulfill their aspirations, seek agency and pursue meaning (Jiang and Wang, 2014; Meliou, 2020; Liu and Wu, 2022). Situating women’s entrepreneurship in the Chinese societies, a unique setting to understand women’s evolving agency in the market, given its unprecedented economic liberalization as well as persistent patriarchal traditions, further complicate the picture of how women continue to wrangle with the existing cultural and social norms. Studies found that Chinese women tend to view establishing their own businesses or taking up family ventures as a way to gain public recognition, increase life satisfaction and seek family affirmations, but they continue to experience cross-generational conflicts and structural challenges in China’s male-dominated business culture (Zhu et al., 2019; Li et al., 2020; Song and Li, 2023).

Earlier research on entrepreneurship often reinforces dominant stereotypes of women instead of exploring the diverse ways in which entrepreneurship is gendered (Ahl, 2006). Scholars continue to find that women’s entrepreneurial behaviors are still institutionally constrained, from formal laws to informal norms (Acker, 1990; Giménez and Calabrò, 2018). Recent scholars have argued that college-educated career aspirants often prioritize occupational paths that align with deeply personal interests and values (Cech, 2021), and it is to be studied how such individualistic interests may be negotiated in settings of persisting patriarchal practices and the rising importance of family solidarity in China (Song and Ji, 2020). Along with the declining family sizes and the shifting roles of wives, mothers and daughters in Chinese families, many young women have gained greater control of family resources and connections (Li and Song, 2024). Not only have family investments contributed to young women’s enhanced education, skills and horizons, but their economic success has also become a part of the family’s upward social mobility (Zhou and Song, 2022).

Meanwhile, gender discrimination and suppression persist in China’s business spheres, deeply rooted in patriarchal traditions and often reinforced by market competition (Osburg, 2013). Furthermore, women entrepreneurs also diversify their business ventures based on their socioeconomic status, family backgrounds and life trajectories (Chen, 2012). Although entrepreneurship may be regarded as representing risk-taking spirits in some cases and flexible self-employment in other cases, women experience a more complicated decision-making process to join entrepreneurship and embrace a more mixed nature of their business. Compared with older generations, young and highly educated women may pursue and balance family solidarity and self-development in new ways when conducting entrepreneurship, being more individualistic in some ways but complying with filial and familial duties in other ways (Song and Li, 2023). The impact of emerging digital platforms, informal sectors, small ventures, migrant economies and social enterprises on women’s motivations, experiences and reflections on entrepreneurship has yet to be fully examined.

By centering on the evolving opportunity structures and gendered constraints that are increasingly diversified regarding women’s entrepreneurship, this special issue focuses on women’s motivations, experiences and reflections in starting, navigating and positioning their entrepreneurial activities. All of the above call for more grounded studies to understand Chinese women’s experiences in different kinds of entrepreneurship, from traditional and social to technology-mediated entrepreneurship (Luo and Chan, 2021). Against the backdrop of China’s market economy success, this special issue further brings attention to women’s agency in the marketplace, their work-family strategies and the gendered socio-cultural implications of entrepreneurial dynamics in both public and private spheres (Bullough et al., 2022).

Gender and entrepreneurship as intersectional lived experiences

This special issue seeks to present diverse empirical studies on women’s motivations, experiences and meaning-making practices in the evolving entrepreneurial dynamics in China. Moving beyond traditional male-centered business models and the dominant masculine business culture, we aim to encourage much-needed research that positions Chinese women entrepreneurs at the intersection of the old and new economies, enduring gender beliefs, occupational gender segregation and the gendered meanings of work. By doing so, we hope the special issue offers new perspectives on the longstanding question of doing business and doing gender at the same time (Henry et al., 2016; Cooke and Xiao, 2021). The Special Issue focuses on the following four aims within the Chinese context:

1. To illustrate women's unique motivations in partaking in the traditional or innovative, formal or informal and full-time or part-time forms of entrepreneurship.

2. To examine women’s experiences, managerial styles and strategies to deal with unique opportunities and obstacles in female-dominated, male-dominated or less gender-segregated professions as entrepreneurs.

3. To demonstrate women’s compliance, resistance or improvization in the face of gender beliefs and gender stereotypes in running business, as well as new forms of their work-family interactions.

4. To illuminate women’s meaning-crafting processes to align social and business purposes in entrepreneurial pursuits beyond economic motivations.

The special issue illustrates the emerging trends in female entrepreneurship under China’s rise, their changing aspirations and challenges, and the increasingly diversified motivations, experiences and reflections. The collection of articles helps to demonstrate gendered pathways to different kinds of entrepreneurial careers, the diverse forms of work-life balance of female entrepreneurs in Chinese contexts, the shifting boundaries between feminized and masculinized businesses, and the gendered meanings of work in entrepreneurial pursuits. The special issue aims to add to a more comprehensive understanding of women’s employment transition into entrepreneurship and their adventure in the evolving economies, which challenge gender stereotypes in the public and private spheres.

Since the open call of the Special Issue, we received 19 submissions, and after the rigorous review process, we were able to accept eight papers. The collection includes six qualitative studies on a diverse group of Chinese women engaged in various forms of entrepreneurship, along with two articles using survey data to explore long-standing topics such as work-family conflict and entrepreneurial identity. We have organized these articles into four key themes, each offering new insights into women’s entrepreneurship in China: 1) Gender self-positioning and identity formation; 2) Gender stigma, penalty and reward in the entrepreneurial pursuits of professionalism; 3) Work-family struggles; 4) Gender job-crafting and meaning-making. Below, we introduce each theme and the articles that provide new lenses to think about the different facets of women’s entrepreneurship in China.

Theme 1: gender self-positioning and identity formation

The first theme in this special issue examines how Chinese women position themselves in gendered ways when choosing self-employed entrepreneurship and how this self-entrepreneurial identity can impact their well-being. In the article “Embracing a rubber rice bowl: women’s transition from paid work to self-employed entrepreneurship in coastal China,” Song (2024) conceptualizes femininities as a set of qualities that women creatively use to navigate the business world. The study compares Chinese women’s career choices among three types of jobs: the stable “iron rice bowl” in the public sector, the less stable “spring rice” jobs in the private sector and the flexible “rubber rice bowl” in self-employment. Unlike the desexualized public sector or highly sexualized private sector, entrepreneurship offers women a space for flexible expression of femininity and a new sense of security. Through qualitative interviews with 17 self-employed entrepreneurs in Zhejiang, a hub of entrepreneurship in China, the study reveals that many women transition to self-employment to seek autonomy and respect, escaping gender stereotypes and suppressions in their wage employment. The article’s innovative concept of the “rubber rice bowl” captures the adaptability of entrepreneurship to accommodate fluid expressions of femininity and gender strategies.

While previous studies have highlighted the positive impact of entrepreneurial self-identity on well-being, in “The influence mechanism of women’s entrepreneurial self-identity on entrepreneurial well-being: evidence from China”, Lan et al. (2024) further explore this connection. They find that when women identify as entrepreneurs, it boosts their confidence in pursuing and developing their businesses, enhancing their well-being and job satisfaction. Based on a survey of 210 women entrepreneurs in China, the study provides new insights into how work autonomy and meaning mediate the relationship between self-identity and well-being in women’s entrepreneurship.

The two studies on this theme shed light on the processes of identity searching, positioning and affirmation among Chinese women entrepreneurs, both cognitively and practically, as they find new values in their entrepreneurial endeavors to balance the precarity in business culture.

Theme 2: gender stigma, penalty and reward in the entrepreneurial pursuits of professionalism

The second set of articles investigates female entrepreneurs’ pursuit of professionalism in navigating highly masculinized or feminized fields. Female entrepreneurs in these fields must strategically leverage feminine, educational, class-based and network-based capitals to overcome the gendered stigma and penalty and enhance the potential reward derived from their entrepreneurship. In “Femininity penalties and rewards: obstacles and opportunities for Chinese female entrepreneurs in gender-segregated industries,” Lulu Li (2024) finds that women have to not only “do gender” but also strategically “do gender well” or “do gender differently,” depending on the nature of their business. Based on 41 in-depth interviews with female entrepreneurs in both male-dominated and female-dominated industries across two Chinese provinces, the study reveals the various penalties and rewards associated with performing different forms of femininity in a professional context. These outcomes are influenced not only by gender identities but also by the compatibility of women’s class and socioeconomic status within China’s specific sociocultural context.

Zhou and Song (2024), in “Doing business against gendered stigma: skilled female migrants in Hong Kong’s cross-border insurance business,” examine how skilled female migrants construct gender identities and mobilize social networks to advance their careers against the commonly observed stigma attached to women’s service work. Based on 40 in-depth interviews with female insurance agents from mainland China working as Hong Kong’s insurance agents, the study explores a highly gendered field dominated by highly educated young women, who rely more on strong ties in warm markets (family, relatives and friends) in some cases and more on weak ties in cold markets (strangers) in others. In warm markets, some women benefited from their family resources and connections, based on which they mobilized traditional gender roles, such as being filial daughters, considerate “nieces,” or caring “sisters” to achieve economic success. However, warm markets also led to gendered suspicions about women’s “instrumental” womanhood in activating acquaintance networks, especially when their career choice lacked support from their families, relatives and friends. In cold markets, some women focused on cultivating a gender-neutral professional image and others mobilized feminine affinity; the selective mobilization of traditional and nontraditional femininities served to expand their client pools and construct their trustworthiness. Although femininized service work is often framed as less professional and low-end occupations, this study illustrates how women diversify in networking and constructing gender identities to overcome the gendered stigma and strive for respect and rewards in the business sphere.

These studies suggest how women encounter unique opportunities and challenges in both female-dominated and male-dominated industries. These two articles fill the research gap by exploring how women navigate these gender-specific dynamics, mobilize resources and overcome discrimination. They further emphasize women’s evolving roles in a shifting market, the social implications of their entrepreneurial activities and the changing perceptions of the glass ceiling effect, which remain uniquely gendered in China, often manifesting gender-based rewards and stigma (Sung, 2023). They also show how women build entrepreneurial networks and develop management styles under the constant stigmatization by China’s patriarchal traditions or scrutiny in the masculinized business spheres.

Theme 3: work-family struggles

The third theme discusses the challenges women entrepreneurs and leaders face in balancing work and family responsibilities while maintaining their business and managerial positions. Faced with a persistent gender division of labor in the Chinese societies, women often shoulder the majority of family responsibilities, although the extent may vary by their backgrounds, experiences and life stages. In “Work–family conflict and behavioral outcomes of Chinese female leaders: the mechanisms of work–family guilt and family centrality”, Chen et al. (2023) investigate the cognitive effects of work-to-family conflict (WFC). They examine how work-to-family guilt (WFG) mediates women’s work-family conflict and how family centrality (FC) influences this relationship. Based on a sample of 410 Chinese female leaders, the study finds that work-to-family guilt often prompts these leaders to adopt coping strategies, sometimes leading to unethical pro-family behavior (UPFB), which benefits the family but violates social and organizational rules. This gender dilemma demonstrates the emotional struggle female leaders face, as they often feel guilty for neglecting family responsibilities in favor of their careers.

The work-family struggles may emerge not only regarding women’s marital families but also concerning their natal families. “Online business: ambitious daughters and their suspicious career in China” by Tang and Song (2024) illustrates how highly educated young women negotiate their motivations to run online businesses under parental pressures and social expectations of women having stable and formal jobs. Based on in-depth interviews of 18 young women in online businesses, the research reveals how young women’s decisions are heavily influenced by their relationships and interactions with their parents, who invested heavily in their daughters’ education and employment. Given their varied backgrounds and experiences, young women illustrated different forms and extents of self-determination in entrepreneurial pursuits and embraced online business as a primary or secondary job. This study highlights the women’s persistent work-family negotiation beyond the opportunity-necessity dichotomy in entrepreneurship studies. It points to more complicated decision-making processes between generations and among family members, such as driven by the concerns of highly educated women being “overqualified” for self-employed business (Li and Song, 2024). Such an “overqualified” stigma applies particularly to women’s online businesses, which contributes to the compliance of some young women with their parents’ wishes for job decency and security while keeping their entrepreneurial activities as a secret secondary job.

In China, where women’s entrepreneurship is closely tied to the state’s agenda for local and national economic progress, these two timely studies offer a nuanced understanding of how women navigate multiple roles and negotiate their aspirations and compromises, which often involve difficult trade-offs rising from their marital and natal families. The findings provide contextual evidence that supplements previous research, highlighting how the persistent portrayal of women entrepreneurs on social media balancing roles as homemakers, mothers and business leaders may inadvertently pressure young women or those who deviate from traditional gender roles (Han et al., 2021).

Theme 4: gender job-crafting and meaning-making

The fourth theme of the Special Issue focuses on how Chinese women use social entrepreneurship to find meaning in their work while navigating gender expectations in social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship, which leverages market-based solutions to tackle social and environmental challenges, has emerged as a popular organizational model, alongside traditional businesses and nonprofits, to empower women and drive social change (Haugh and Talwar, 2016; Gupta et al., 2020). Studies have shown that women are more likely than men to establish social enterprises; female entrepreneurs are more likely to integrate their gender identities with the intention to pursue entrepreneurship (Bernardino et al., 2018; Lopes et al., 2024). Many women have used their social enterprises to promote gender equality, create sustainability practices and generate new meanings in life. While social entrepreneurship has been booming in China as a means to revitalize national development, especially in the countryside, the lived experiences of female social entrepreneurs, their gender identities and the social implications of their ventures call for more investigation (Wang, 2023).

The last group of articles explores the understudied terrain of Chinese women’s encounters with entrepreneurship and social innovation at the intersection of their gender identities and transformative career paths as agents of social change. Shang’s (2024) “From the emancipated to the emancipator: an integrative perspective on women social entrepreneurs’ emancipation experiences” provides a gender lens on the emancipatory nature of social entrepreneurship. Through qualitative case studies of eight female social entrepreneurs in Hong Kong, the study explores how these women experience and enact emancipatory potential. It proposes a process model of “emancipatory women social entrepreneurship,” emphasizing the dynamic interaction between individuals and their environments. This model illustrates how female social entrepreneurs transition from recipients of emancipation to active agents of change for others. Social entrepreneurship thus becomes a space for women to pursue their passions, leverage their strengths and challenge societal constraints.

Finally, Han’s (2024) article, “Crafting gender into meaningful work: experiences of women engaging in social entrepreneurship in China,” challenges the common association between women and entrepreneurial empowerment. Instead, the study argues that female social entrepreneurs must actively align their gender identities to redefine their job roles and create meaningful work. While job crafting has been previously explored in the context of traditional careers or male-dominated professions, this study pioneers in applying it to the intersection of gender and entrepreneurship in the boundaryless career of social entrepreneurship. Based on in-depth interviews with 19 female social entrepreneurs in China, the study finds that while women find social entrepreneurship meaningful, they must actively use job crafting strategies to align their gender and work identities. They engage in task crafting by integrating personal values into their social ventures, relational crafting by building gender-based relationships and cognitive crafting by balancing social impact and profit. The study further reveals that a combination of relational and cognitive crafting helps sustain their social ventures. It concludes the special issue by highlighting the simultaneous empowerment and ambivalence that female entrepreneurs continue to face in the Chinese entrepreneurial landscape.

Conclusion: grounding intersectionality in women’s entrepreneurship in China

This special issue deepens our understanding of identity formation, gender experiences and the meaning-making processes within women’s entrepreneurship in China. It also critically reassesses existing gender norms that often reinforce stereotypical views of femininity, offering a more fluid and agency-centered analysis of the diverse strategies employed by female entrepreneurs. While we hope to include more diverse experiences from women entrepreneurs through the intersectional lens, despite the wide circulation of the Special Issue’s call for submissions, we received no articles about disabled women entrepreneurs, those of sexual minorities or studies about entrepreneurship from women located in socioeconomically marginalized areas (except some from small cities or rural counties). Perhaps due to the accessibility of data and research subjects, most submissions and accepted articles focus on urban, more educated, middle-class women. While these women may represent a significant portion of those embarking on entrepreneurial journeys, including voices from more diverse groups and their unique social and cultural contexts could reveal new gender-related challenges and opportunities in China. For instance, with the rise of short-video platforms like TikTok, many women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and developing countries are emerging as the “unlikely creative class” in platform creative entrepreneurship (Lin and de Kloet, 2019; Duan et al., 2023). A few articles in this special issue point to the rising importance of family resources and family connections in women’s career choices and illustrate how socioeconomic stratification and the hierarchies of occupations and social circles can be reinforced (Tang and Song, 2024; Li, 2024). Other articles in this special issue suggest that the gender stigma in women’s business is being challenged and that the gendered meaning of work is being redefined (Han, 2024; Shang, 2024; Zhou and Song, 2024). Such diverse entrepreneurial dynamics may spread to more disadvantaged groups and less developed areas in the future.

While most selected articles in this Special Issue focus on qualitative self-narratives of women’s entrepreneurship, analyzed from a sociological perspective, a postfeminist analysis of traditional and new forms of platform entrepreneurship, viewed as aspirational labor, could also offer fresh insights into gender dynamics in management studies and women’s entrepreneurship in China (Cooke and Xiao, 2021). One article in this special issue explores women’s participation in online business (Tang and Song, 2024), while several others examine new forms of female entrepreneurship that differ from traditional ventures (Han, 2024; Li, 2024; Shang, 2024; Zhou and Song, 2024). These studies highlight how women’s gender ambivalence reflects a postfeminist sensibility (Gill, 2017). These diverse forms of entrepreneurship highlight the need for more research on the intersection of postfeminist, platform-driven and gender-aware entrepreneurial identities. While postfeminism is widely applied in media studies, particularly among Chinese female influencers and marginalized groups who cultivate the self as an enterprise, gender awareness could also deepen our understanding of leadership and entrepreneurial identities in China (Lin et al., 2019; Berglund et al., 2023; Lewis and Benschop, 2023). Furthermore, given the unique governance of Chinese digital platforms, the emergence of “pink feminist” practices blending nationalist and gender egalitarian agendas in doing business online presents an intriguing area for future research (Han and Liu, 2024). This cultural specificity could foster a distinct form of gender entrepreneurship in the digital space, offering a new avenue for studying women’s entrepreneurship in China.

Finally, we believe that adopting a feminist, intersectional perspective is an emancipatory approach to understanding women’s entrepreneurship. This special issue achieves this by grounding management studies in intersectionality, examining the multi-dimensional gender dynamics and entrepreneurial practices of Chinese women. A few articles in this special issue explore how women leverage their multiple identities and navigate competing expectations, often at the expense of violating organizational rules or compromising their well-being, to succeed or make concessions in leadership roles or entrepreneurship (Chen et al., 2023; Lan et al., 2024). Women must develop diverse strategies to mobilize their different backgrounds and construct fluid gender scripts in the face of various opportunities and obstacles in male-dominated and female-dominated business environments (Li, 2024; Zhou and Song, 2024). In particular, generations and class co-shape women’s experiences and struggles when they try to embrace innovative ventures on digital platforms, which call for more research about where the material and ideological barriers lie and how breakthroughs can take place (Tang and Song, 2024). By leveraging their diverse identities, new forms of entrepreneurship that integrate social and business goals provide women with the opportunity to create new meanings in their lives (Han, 2024). These ventures also allow them to expand their social influence, particularly by supporting more disadvantaged groups (Shang, 2024). Looking ahead, we hope this special issue serves as a catalyst for incorporating more critical gender perspectives and inclusive approaches in Chinese entrepreneurship studies. Our goal is to broaden the scope of management studies, particularly regarding women’s entrepreneurship in China, by examining their motivations, experiences and reflections within shifting economies and evolving social expectations, which bear varying implications across genders and social groups.