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1 – 10 of 864Social entrepreneurship has been recently viewed as an emancipatory process that promotes freedom and autonomy for social entrepreneurs and those they serve. However, the…
Abstract
Purpose
Social entrepreneurship has been recently viewed as an emancipatory process that promotes freedom and autonomy for social entrepreneurs and those they serve. However, the mechanisms of how emancipation is enacted remain relatively underexplored. By using an integrative lens, this paper aims to explore the emancipation experiences of women social entrepreneurs and unpack the processes through which they extend their self-emancipation to facilitate the empowerment of others.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopted a qualitative multiple-case study approach. Semistructured interviews were conducted with eight women social entrepreneurs from various industries in Hong Kong to understand and examine their experiences of “emancipation from” and “emancipation to” in social entrepreneurship.
Findings
This study identified a three-phase emancipatory journey of women social entrepreneurs. Specifically, the findings revealed that their emancipation experiences started with self-awareness of constraints in their surroundings, primarily due to stereotyped social norms and institutional barriers. This phase is followed by embracing social entrepreneurship as a coping strategy for navigating the perceived constraints and exploring new possibilities with increased agency. Ultimately, this transformation extends beyond their individual growth into broader social impacts as women social entrepreneurs use their newfound agency to effect meaningful social changes.
Originality/value
This study enriches the “entrepreneuring as emancipation” perspective by embracing an integrative lens that allows us to delve into the complex layers of emancipation experiences of women social entrepreneurs. Notably, this study differentiates various conceptions of emancipation, presenting a dual role of women social entrepreneurs as both the emancipated and the emancipator. By situating the study in Hong Kong, where women often face gendered expectations that shape their career choices and development, this study offers a nuanced and contextual understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities women social entrepreneurs encounter in their environment.
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Bede Akorige Atarah, Vladi Finotto, Eimear Nolan and André van Stel
The aim of this research is to determine the stages that women in resource-constrained environments go through in order to emancipate themselves through entrepreneurial…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this research is to determine the stages that women in resource-constrained environments go through in order to emancipate themselves through entrepreneurial activities. Based on their fieldwork, the authors develop a process framework of emancipation-through-entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 57 female entrepreneurs in two resource-constrained countries in West Africa. Non-participant observations were employed as a secondary data collection technique to provide important sources of information for triangulation.
Findings
This study's findings indicate that the process of female emancipation through entrepreneurship begins with the perception of one's personal motivations, followed by the choice of economic activities, the gathering of various necessary resources, and finally the commencement and running of a venture to bring about the desired emancipation. Various factors, such as family, the external environment, personal qualities and ease of operations, were found to influence the choice of entrepreneurial activities. We also found that human, social, cultural and political capital interact to produce economic capital, a central form of capital for the starting and running of ventures in resource-constrained environments.
Originality/value
Although extant studies have shown that entrepreneurship can be a vehicle for women to liberate themselves from various constraints, it is as yet unclear which process these women follow to achieve such emancipation. The development of a process framework of emancipation-through-entrepreneurship is the key contribution of this paper. Despite extant research demonstrating that entrepreneurship can assist women in financially limited settings to achieve economic independence, the specific steps these women take in the process remain unclear. Thus, this paper presents a process framework that focuses on women in constrained environments and their journey to emancipation through entrepreneurship.
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Albena Pergelova and Vesna Mandakovic
This study takes an “entrepreneurship as emancipation” perspective to study entrepreneurs defined as “others” on multiple categories: women entrepreneurs whose ventures are…
Abstract
Purpose
This study takes an “entrepreneurship as emancipation” perspective to study entrepreneurs defined as “others” on multiple categories: women entrepreneurs whose ventures are necessity-based, bootstrapped and located in economically impoverished areas (neighborhoods) in two Latin-American countries: Chile and Peru.
Design/methodology/approach
The study takes an interpretivist research approach and analyses inductively interviews with women entrepreneurs.
Findings
The findings reveal how everyday practices in pursuit of emancipation – while conducted within the existing patriarchal social structure – push the boundaries and contribute to changes in the social system via a variety of outcomes such as intergenerational social mobility, personal fulfilment and strengthening the communities in which the women entrepreneurs operate. Furthermore, while the authors find that in the particular Latin-American context under study, entrepreneuring activities become an emancipatory possibility for the everyday women entrepreneurs, they also highlight a “dark side” of their emancipatory projects.
Originality/value
The study contributes to recent critical studies in entrepreneurship by demonstrating the diversity and importance of the “mundane” activities undertaken by “necessity-based” entrepreneurs, and the significant – yet underappreciated – reach of their ventures’ impact on issues well beyond economic considerations.
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Violina P. Rindova, Santosh B. Srinivas and Luis L. Martins
The assumption of wealth creation as the dominant motive underlying entrepreneurial efforts has been challenged in recent work on entrepreneurship. Taking the perspective that…
Abstract
The assumption of wealth creation as the dominant motive underlying entrepreneurial efforts has been challenged in recent work on entrepreneurship. Taking the perspective that entrepreneurship involves emancipatory efforts by social actors to escape ideological and material constraints in their environments (Rindova, Barry, & Ketchen, 2009), researchers have sought to explain a range of entrepreneurial activities in contexts that have traditionally been excluded from entrepreneurship research. We seek to extend this research by proposing that entrepreneurial acts toward emancipation can be guided by different notions of the common good underlying varying conceptions of worth, beyond those emphasized in the view of entrepreneurial activity as driven by economic wealth creation. These alternative conceptions of worth are associated with specific subjectivities of entrepreneurial self and relevant others, and distinct legitimate bases for actions and coordination, enabling emancipation by operating from alternative value system perspectives. Drawing on Boltanski and Thévenot’s (2006) work on multiple orders of worth (OOWs), we describe how emancipatory entrepreneurship is framed within – and limited by – the dominant view, which is rooted in a market OOW. As alternatives to this view, we theorize how the civic and inspired OOWs point to alternate emancipatory ends and means through which entrepreneurs break free from material and ideological constraints. We describe factors that enable and constrain emancipatory entrepreneurship efforts within each of these OOWs, and discuss the implications of our theoretical ideas for how entrepreneurs can choose among different OOWs as perspectives and for the competencies required for engaging with pluralistic value perspectives.
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Rana Zayadin, Antonella Zucchella and Amitabh Anand
The aim of the study is to examine the reciprocal relation between context and emancipatory acts. Context is important in shaping the entrepreneurial action, particularly in a…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of the study is to examine the reciprocal relation between context and emancipatory acts. Context is important in shaping the entrepreneurial action, particularly in a developing region, as it expounds its emancipatory role. At the same time emancipatory acts can affect context as well.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs an inductive research design, applying an open-ended exploratory research and conversation analysis, to elicit the stories of 25 entrepreneurs who are challenging their status quo.
Findings
Acts of emancipation were observed through a dynamic process centred around entrepreneurs' abilities to respond to policy debates. These debates introduced an individual level action towards social and institutional change. The findings present a model of entrepreneurial acts as an enabler in a socially constrained and challenging context.
Originality/value
Through contextual embeddedness, this study captured the entrepreneur's abilities to re-perform and negotiation with their context towards actions of emancipation. The study aims to capture individuals' narratives to enhance our understanding of the contextual and embedded factors that shape the entrepreneurial process towards emancipation. The study presents a model that theorises these narratives and actions.
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Subhadip Roy, Subhalaxmi Mohapatra and Dina Banerjee
This study aims to explore the process of women entrepreneurship in India from a social perspective using the concept of entrepreneurship as emancipation.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the process of women entrepreneurship in India from a social perspective using the concept of entrepreneurship as emancipation.
Design/methodology/approach
An interpretive approach is applied to address the study objectives, and based on an inductive method, the non-economic antecedents that led women to start entrepreneurship ventures are explored using 33 in-depth interviews. The study explores beyond the motivations and investigates the social process through which a women entrepreneur passes through after taking the decision to start a business venture.
Findings
Major findings indicate entrepreneurship as a change process where changes in both the entrepreneur and her social surroundings are observed with time. More detailed analysis reveal opposing (the entrepreneur) social forces in the initiation phase but more supportive social set up in the later phases of the entrepreneurship. The results support the process of entrepreneurship as emancipation (with stages such as seeking autonomy, authoring and declaring).
Research limitations/implications
The present study supports the concept of entrepreneurship as an emancipation process, and how it unfolds as a gendered process in a society where women (in general) are still not treated as equals.
Practical implications
The study has practical implications for entrepreneurs and their stakeholder networks.
Social implications
The findings have novel social implications on how a broader social structure has an influence on the entrepreneurship journey of a woman.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the phenomenon of entrepreneurship as an emancipation for women entrepreneurs of elite families in a developing nation who have started their business from non-economic needs.
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The study examines the emancipatory potential of entrepreneurship for women in STEM who have experienced a mid-career break. As studies on this subject are rather scarce, it also…
Abstract
Purpose
The study examines the emancipatory potential of entrepreneurship for women in STEM who have experienced a mid-career break. As studies on this subject are rather scarce, it also makes an important contribution to the literature by providing key insights into the entrepreneurial journeys of women in STEM who have experienced a career break and have started their own enterprises. The findings could be used by governments to intervene in the identified areas of difficulty and to facilitate the entrepreneurial endeavours of women in order to bring this community back into the workforce.
Design/methodology/approach
The study maps the entrepreneurial journeys of 23 women with a STEM background who turned into entrepreneurs after experiencing a career break. Qualitative data was collected through personal interviews with women entrepreneurs and was then analysed to interpret the results.
Findings
While the study confirms the emancipatory potential of entrepreneurship among well-educated middle-class women with a STEM background who face constraints related to career advancement and work–life balance, it also provides insights on various aspects related to their entrepreneurial development. This includes aspects such as their motivation to start a business, major barriers they face in developing their businesses and the strategies they use to handle those barriers. Suggestions for policy development are also proposed.
Originality/value
In addition to studying the entrepreneurial aspect of a rather underexamined segment of women in STEM who have experienced a career break, the study also examines the scope of the emancipatory potential of entrepreneurship for this segment of women. To the best of our understanding, no such study on STEM women has been carried out in developing nations in spite of the fact that this segment of women forms an important techno-economic resource which remains largely underutilised in developing economies.
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Ted Baker and Friederike Welter
The purpose of this paper is to make the argument that previously marginalized but now flourishing subfields of entrepreneurship research continue to provide insights that can…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to make the argument that previously marginalized but now flourishing subfields of entrepreneurship research continue to provide insights that can form the basis for future entrepreneurship research that is more broadly practical and critical. What is currently core or “mainstream” in entrepreneurship research would then be seen as an important but rare special case.
Design/methodology/approach
The essay briefly explores a number of illustrative themes that have emerged and become important in women’s entrepreneurship research (acknowledging that some similar themes have emerged in other subfields). These themes are used to suggest how broader application of such insights to theory-building about entrepreneurship in general – rather than “just” to “women’s entrepreneurship” – might greatly enrich the field.
Findings
The authors’ arguments suggest that research focused on ghettoized subfields such as women’s entrepreneurship challenge the assumptions of what entrepreneurship is and what it contributes. For example the richer perspective on motivations, goals, and outcomes and on the possibilities of emancipation that currently animate research on women’s entrepreneurship can improve the understanding of all entrepreneurship.
Originality/value
Too much of current entrepreneurship research is both of limited practical value for “practitioners” and of little “critical value” for scholars interested in how things might work better. The authors argue that by broadening the set of goals, motivations, contexts and accomplishments that are taken as legitimate targets of study, entrepreneurship research can become both more practical and more critical and thus more broadly useful and legitimate.
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Chioma Onoshakpor, James Cunningham and Elizabeth Gammie
Nigeria presents something of an entrepreneurial paradox. Women in entrepreneurship dominate the economy, yet patriarchal structures dominate society. This article investigates…
Abstract
Purpose
Nigeria presents something of an entrepreneurial paradox. Women in entrepreneurship dominate the economy, yet patriarchal structures dominate society. This article investigates how patriarchal factors impact entrepreneurial processes, in turn, creating unequal expectations of entrepreneurial opportunity.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts an intersectionality lens to explore how patriarchy is manifest for entrepreneurs. The reflective narratives of 30 entrepreneurs are analysed, provided through semi-structured interviews. An inductive qualitative approach accesses the gendered discourse of entrepreneurship as constructed by entrepreneurs. Within this discourse, the factors of patriarchy are exposed.
Findings
Findings reveal a multi-faceted patriarchy, with the informing factors of entrepreneurial gender roles, class and religion. The study explains how the interaction of these factors reinforce patriarchal ideals and create a variety of gendered images of what is acceptable entrepreneurial activity in Nigeria, and for whom.
Originality/value
This study contributes to growing insight on entrepreneurship in Africa and challenges linear arguments of entrepreneurship-as-emancipation for women. In complex and multidimensional contexts, entrepreneurs must navigate the intersection of factors sensitively, ensuring acceptance and fulfilment of societal expectations. The power of intersectionality as a theory of contextualisation is discussed.
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Anuja Shukla, Priyanka Kushwah, Eti Jain and Shiv Kumar Sharma
The role of information and communications technology (ICT) has been tested in various contexts of online shopping and the results show that ICT has successfully transformed the…
Abstract
Purpose
The role of information and communications technology (ICT) has been tested in various contexts of online shopping and the results show that ICT has successfully transformed the way of doing business. This study aims to propose that if women have adequate internet skills, namely, operative, informational and creative skills, their entrepreneurial intentions will be high.
Design/methodology/approach
This is descriptive research. The data was collected from 246 university students and analyzed using PLS-SEM.
Findings
The results of the study show that students belonging to entrepreneurial backgrounds have a positive attitude toward entrepreneurship. The impact of internet skills was mixed on the relationship of entrepreneurial attitude and entrepreneurial intention.
Research limitations/implications
The sample was not generalized as the sample consisted of urban and internet-using women. Future research can test the model for rural women entrepreneurs or usage of m-commerce for the same.
Practical implications
The results of the study show that women having the skills to operate the internet have higher intentions to become an entrepreneur. Thus, the e-commerce web-space can use the results to influence women of the new generation to use available tools in their journey of entrepreneurship.
Social implications
Women are an indispensable part of society. Empowering them will not only improve their confidence but will also strengthen the pillars of society.
Originality/value
Extensive research work has been done in the context of women entrepreneurship. The study is a novel attempt to test the effects of internet skills on entrepreneurial intention among new generation women. The results will be very much useful for future research and will extend the body of academic literature.
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