Search results

When we take the lens of race, ethnicity, gender, and class to the collected academic work on women business owners, what does it reveal? What do we really know? Are there differing definitions of success across segments of the women businessowner demographics? Do the challenges faced by African American women entrepreneurs differ from those confronting white female entrepreneurs? Do immigrant female women businessowners face more significant institutional barriers than their counterparts who have been U.S. citizens for at least two generations? Are there similar reasons for starting their businesses?

Although several theoretical concepts imply different determinants of female entrepreneurship, the literature lacks a consensus on their significance. The aim of this paper is to verify how industry specificity influences the gender pay gap and its relation to female entrepreneurship.

The authors distinguish industries based on the gender equality level, measured jointly by two factors: pay gap level and female participation rate. The study has been conducted among 22 European countries with relatively similar institutional backgrounds. The authors carry out the analysis based on the panel regression models, which enable the authors to verify two predefined research questions.

The results of panel regression models indicate that industry specificity plays a significant role in the relation between the pay gap and female entrepreneurship. Generally, it can be concluded that gender pay gap as a measure of gender inequality is dependent on the industry specificity. The dependence is especially visible in the breakdown of male- and female-dominated industries.

The findings are consistent with the assumption that the gender pay gap is a discriminatory factor for women willing to become entrepreneurs in certain industries. The findings of the study may constitute a vital tool in planning to overcome it.

This study aims to investigate the synergies between the economic environment and the smart living dimension embedded in the current smart city initiatives, focusing on the localization of female entrepreneurship in contemporary cities. This interaction is under-investigated and controversial as it includes cities' practices enabling users and citizens to develop their potential and build their own lives, affecting entrepreneurial and economic outcomes. Building upon the perspective of the innovation ecosystems, this study focuses on the impact of smart living dimensions and R&D investments on the localization of female entrepreneurial activities.

The study uses a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and a panel dataset that considers 30 Italian smart city projects for 12 years to demonstrate the relationship between smart living practices in cities and the localization of female entrepreneurship. The complementary effect of public R&D investment is also included as a driver in the “smart” city transition.

The study found that the advancement of smart living practices in cities drives the localization of female entrepreneurship. The study highlights the empirical results, the interaction over the years and a current overview through choropleth maps. The public R&D investment also affects this relationship.

This study advances the theoretical discussion on (1) female entrepreneurial intentions, (2) smart city advancement (as a context) and (3) smart living dimension (as a driver) and offers valuable insight for governance and policymakers.

This study offers empirical contributions to the preliminary academic debate on enterprise development and smart city trajectories at the intersection between human-based practices and female entrepreneurship.

This study offers empirical contributions to the preliminary academic debate on enterprise development and smart city trajectories at the intersection between human-based practices and female entrepreneurship. The findings provide valuable insights into the localization of female entrepreneurship in the context of smart cities.

As of 2007, there were an estimated 10.4 million businesses in the United States that were owned and operated by women. The number of women-owned firms has continued to grow at around twice the rate of all firms for the past two decades (Center for Women℉s Business Research, 2008). On the other hand, women comprise only 15.4 percent of corporate officers in Fortune 500 companies (Catalyst, 2007b) and, in 2003, held only 14.8 percent of board seats in the Fortune 500 (Catalyst, 2007a).To better understand the glass ceiling faced by both female entrepreneurs and women leaders, the research on women℉s issues is examined from a number of different vantage points. Women℉s entrepreneurship and women℉s leadership research on leadership, decision-making, and gender differences was examined to discover commonalities. Then female single-sex education literature was reviewed for insights on developmental issues that might influence future women entrepreneurs and leaders. In this exploration of research, it was found that both women entrepreneurs and women leaders in the corporate environment tend toward the same leadership styles and ways of interacting with others; they also experience a lack of role models and possible lack of self-efficacy.The literature on single-sex education provides observations that young women may thrive in environments in which there are fewer male competitors, hold less stereotyped views on gender, hold higher aspirations, may have greater opportunities for training of leadership skills, and may have increased self-confidence that may be the result of exposure to successful women role models. Implications for future research are explored and suggestions are provided to meet the needs of developing women entrepreneurs.

Understanding the factors that influence entrepreneurs throughout the entrepreneurial process has been a vital topic of entrepreneurial research. Despite societal changes, male entrepreneurs still outnumber females. The purpose of this paper is to develop a greater grasp on the factors that contribute to this phenomenon.

Utilizing social dominance theory and social cognition theory, the authors suggest that a female entrepreneur’s social dominance orientation (SDO) and mentorship experiences will influence her social and conventional entrepreneurial intention.

The authors’ theorizing suggests SDO can lower entrepreneurial self-efficacy which in turn can lower conventional entrepreneurial intentions but increase social intentions in some women. However, if the entrepreneur has mentoring, the effect could be dissipated.

This paper is one of the first to examine the impact of SDO on entrepreneurial intentions, and builds on the work of other scholars.

The purpose of this paper is to assess how far Jamaica has come regarding women economic empowerment, female entrepreneurship and its development policies in favour of women entrepreneurship development.

This exploratory study employs a mixed method approach to achieve its research objectives, consisting of literature review and corroboration with existing database and indices. Key insights of research on female entrepreneurship are used to reflect on published data to assess progress of female entrepreneurship development in Jamaica. The 2017 editions of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and Gender Entrepreneurship and Development Index were examined to gain a better understanding of how the Jamaican business environment has progressed or regressed over time and how the economic development and business environment impact female participation in Jamaica’s labour force and entrepreneurial initiatives.

The economic conditions in Jamaica and the role of females as domestic caregiver have made it difficult for women to enter the labour force even though Jamaican women are relatively better educated than men. Women remain at a disadvantage in the labour force. Jamaica’s legislation and budget allocations in favour of female entrepreneurship are analysed to identify where and how Jamaica is investing its efforts to improve women’s participation in the labour force. The authors conclude with suggestions on how the Jamaican government could facilitate further women entrepreneurship development to reach a more gender balanced inclusive socio-economic development.

While global policy has been promoting women empowerment through entrepreneurial development, little is known on the actual outcome of such human capital investment strategy and the critical vectors that contribute to such outcome. This scarcity of knowledge is also applicable to Jamaica. This paper attempts to contribute to women entrepreneurship research by reaching beyond the output-oriented perspective of various skill development programmes and attempts to link policy choice with overall macro results of entrepreneurship development in general and women entrepreneurship development in specific. The study thus provides a rare glimpse of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Jamaica.

Despite various governmental efforts, female entrepreneurship in the UAE is still not a popular option among women. The purpose of this study is to identify the enablers to female entrepreneurship and to establish relationships among them.

This research uses a two-phased approach. In the first-phase, an empirical study on female entrepreneurs was conducted to find out the most important enablers from among a set of variables identified through a comprehensive literature review. In the second-phase, using interpretive structural modeling, a hierarchy-based model is developed among the most important enablers. Further, these enablers are also classified depending on their driving power and dependence.

Survey results indicate that female entrepreneurs consider enablers as the driving force in creating an entrepreneurial culture. Further, the hierarchy-based model developed in this research helps to identify variables that are of strategic importance and require utmost attention.

The framework presented in this study can be used effectively by the policymakers to develop suitable strategies for improving entrepreneurial behavior among women in the United Arab Emirates.

The novelty of this approach is the integration of questionnaire and interpretive structural modeling methodology and classifying enablers in four clusters. The research provides useful insights about the perception of female entrepreneurs about the entrepreneurial culture in the United Arab Emirates, and a relationship model that may serve as a decision tool for improving female entrepreneurship.

This paper aims to address the rural and gender gaps in the immigrant entrepreneurship literature by exploring the start-up stories of 18 female immigrants who currently run a business in northernmost Norway.

The paper is based on a qualitative fieldwork including business visits and in-depth interviews. The transcripts from the interviews were analysed using a constructivist grounded theory (CGT) approach.

Four modes of entry to entrepreneurship were identified: entrepreneurship as a way out of unemployment; entrepreneurship as a means to avoid underemployment, entrepreneurship as a means to live in a region of perceived attraction; and entrepreneurship as a preferred choice for women in satisfactory wage labour. In addition, the paper reveals the importance of family support and of spatial embeddedness among immigrant entrepreneurs living in a rural context.

This study notes that the modes of entry to rural immigrant entrepreneurship are diverse, but that they are often partly related to the pursuit of an initial feeling of belonging in the new region of settlement. Hence, developing the knowledge of how to not only attract but also retain and increase the feeling of local belonging of immigrants may be important for many rural regions in the Western world. This is because rural immigrants not only represent a much needed in-flow of younger people in a typically decreasing and ageing population but also entail cultural variation and job creation, thus contributing to place development.

The paper argues for the importance of considering immigrant entrepreneurs as significant actors of rural development.

While immigrant entrepreneurship has emerged as an important field of study, it has been criticised for focusing predominantly on men and for neglecting contextual variations in the analysis. The rural context especially has been largely omitted. By focusing on female immigrants having established a business in a rural context, the paper adds to the literature, firstly, by highlighting the experiences of female immigrant entrepreneurs. Secondly, it reveals that rural immigrant entrepreneurship cannot be conceived in terms of “ethnic resources” or “enclave economy” that are often central explanatory dimensions in megacity studies. Thirdly, it argues for the importance of considering both the spatial as well as the family contexts in the author’s theoretical conceptualizations of the (immigrant) entrepreneurial start-up phase.

Nowadays in the competitive economy, the field of entrepreneurship and particularly female entrepreneurship is rapidly advancing, and its contribution to the economy is imperative. Consequently, the female business students’ factors and university support factors are imperative to nurture the entrepreneurial intentions, but the literature does not address them at large. Therefore, this study aims to examine the impact of proactive personality, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and perceived university support factors on female student’s entrepreneurial intentions.

The data from a total of 306 female students from the business schools of universities of Pakistan is collected through the personal physical-survey questionnaires. The data were then analyzed through Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) technique for results.

The results indicate that the proactive personality, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and university support factors are the significant predictors of entrepreneurial intentions of female students. Moreover, the results also support that entrepreneurial self-efficacy partially mediates the relationship between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intentions of female students.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, the study originality lies in the testing of university support factors and individual personality factors (entrepreneurial self-efficacy and proactive personality) as the predictors of entrepreneurial intentions. Moreover, the present study provides the useful insight for the policymakers in formulating, delivering and evaluating educational policies into the universities for female students.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the construction of master narratives related to age, gender and entrepreneurship in the context of entrepreneurship education (EE) in Finnish higher education (HE). This is important as master narratives create and limit our understanding of entrepreneurship.

The data comprises 30 student interviews generated in one multidisciplinary Finnish university. The data were analyzed using narrative positioning analysis to examine what kinds of master narratives are (re)constructed in relation to age and entrepreneurship by Finnish university students and how gender intertwines with age in the construction of entrepreneurship.

Three aged and gendered master narratives were identified: (1) youthful, masculine, startup/growth entrepreneurship; (2) middle-aged feminine, expert entrepreneurship and (3) modest, feminine, senior entrepreneurship. The paper makes visible aged and gendered master narratives and cultural norms related to entrepreneurship in the context of EE and HE. Authors argue that the youthful, masculine startup/growth entrepreneurship is the hegemonic master narrative in the context of EE in Finnish HE. Femininity is mostly excluded from this master narrative.

The paper contributes to critical literature on entrepreneurship as an aged as well as gendered phenomenon in the context of EE and HE. So far research on entrepreneurship as an aged and gendered phenomenon in EE and in the context of HE has been virtually non-existent. Moreover, the theoretical and methodological focus on master narratives in entrepreneurship and EE literature is novel. The master narratives identified in the study show that HE students are not addressed equally in relation to entrepreneurship, but aged and gendered hierarchies are sustained.