Search results

In this study, we question: how do the social costs of failure interact with gendered institutions to affect the early stage entrepreneurship activity? We address this question by employing the institutional theory and a unique dataset of 286,989 entrepreneurs across 35 countries.

To test our hypotheses, we use a multilevel modeling analysis that nests individual entrepreneurs within the countries. To capture individual and country-level variables, we constructed a unique dataset that combines data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), European Flash Barometer (EUFB), World Bank Development Indicator (WDI), World Bank Doing Business Report (WBDB) and World Economic Forum (WEF).

Our analysis confirms that higher levels of the country-level gender equality positively correlate with the early-stage entrepreneurship activity of women. Moreover, we find that this positive relationship is amplified in institutional environments with high social costs of failure, suggesting that societal intolerance for failure can exacerbate the negative effect of gender inequality on the participation of women in entrepreneurship.

Our research contributes to academic interest on the role of legitimacy in women entrepreneurship and is of particular interest to international business scholars, seeking a better understanding of multidimensional construction of institutional frameworks across countries. In this study, we set out to address an important research question: how do the social costs of failure interact with gendered institutions to affect entrepreneurship activity? Our study provides a comprehensive portrait of gendered institutions by including the framework conditions of education, healthcare and political power. We found that in societies with gender equality, the likelihood of individuals engaging in the early-stage entrepreneurship activity is higher and that the positive relationship is strengthened in national environments with high social costs of failure.

Our study findings underscore the need for government policies addressing global gender gaps in economic empowerment. In particular, policies assisting women in obtaining education in high-growth industries like information technology or providing funding to women-dominated industries may foster activity for women seeking to do business in such industries. Such policies connect the early-stage entrepreneurship activities with gender equality concerns and initiatives.

Regarding the social costs of failure construct, specifically, prior studies generally focus narrowly on the context of failed entrepreneurs. We cast a wider net on men and women entrepreneurs’ entry decisions (irrespective of prior experience with business failure) and provide new views on the effects of social costs of failure on entrepreneurial ecosystems. We also extend the research on the legitimacy of women as entrepreneurs with the gender equality construct.

Unlike previous studies, which often focus on the “3Ms” of market, money and management, our research adopts a more holistic perspective. We recognize that the opportunities and challenges faced by entrepreneurs are shaped not only by individual skills and resources but also by the broader macroenvironment. By incorporating the framework conditions of education, healthcare and political power, alongside the intricate interplay of social costs and norms, our study paints a comprehensive picture of the landscape of female entrepreneurship.

This study examines the role of universities in the social entrepreneurship ecosystems (SEEs) in Latin America from the perspective of female academic staff, administrators and outreach workers of universities in the region.

Using a qualitative approach, the study scrutinises in-depth interviews conducted with 24 women from eight Latin American universities.

The findings underscore the pivotal role of universities in promoting social entrepreneurship through knowledge generation, entrepreneur training, network enhancement and the promotion of equity. They also highlight the importance of incorporating a gender perspective into university programmes and practices.

The qualitative nature and small, diverse sample of this research inherently limit its scope. However, these limitations arise from the exploratory approach adopted, which was confined to eight Latin American countries. Further comparative studies in different contexts are needed to deepen the understanding of the dynamics involved.

Universities should offer more tangible support and training in social entrepreneurship with a gender focus. Governments can create incentives for universities to prioritise their contribution in this area.

The study emphasises the potential of women-led social entrepreneurship initiatives to generate positive impact, underscoring the need for inclusive supportive environments.

By providing insights on the role of Latin American universities in SEEs from a gender perspective, this study contributes to limited literature on the intersection of social entrepreneurship, gender, higher education and geographic context in the region. The research underscores the need to further explore how gender and regional dynamics influence social entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Inspired by the “responsibility turn” in the broader organization/management literature, the overarching aim of this article is to help scholars working at the gender × entrepreneurship intersection produce research with a higher likelihood of being accessed, appreciated and acted upon by policy- practitioners. Consistent with this aim, we hope that our paper contributes to an increased use of academic-practitioner collaborations as a means of producing such research.

We selected Cunliffe and Pavlovich’s (2022) recently formulated “public organization/management studies” (public OMS) approach as our guiding methodology. We implemented this approach by forming a co-authorship team comprised of a policy professional and an entrepreneurship scholar and then engaging in a democratic, collaborative and mutually respectful process of knowledge cogeneration.

Our paper is comprised of four distinct sets of ideas. We start by describing who policy-practitioners are and what they want from academic research in general. We follow this with a comprehensive set of priorities for policy-oriented research at the gender × entrepreneurship nexus, accompanied by references to academic studies that offer initial insight into the identified priorities. We then offer suggestions for the separate and joint actions that scholars and policy-practitioners can take to increase policy-relevant research on gender and entrepreneurship. We end with a description and critical reflection on our application of the public OMS approach.

The ideas presented in our article offer an original response to recent work that has critiqued the policy implications (or lack thereof) within prior research at the gender × entrepreneurship nexus (Foss et al., 2019). Our ideas also complement and extend existing recommendations for strengthening the practical contributions of academic scholarship at this intersection (Nelson, 2020). An especially unique aspect is our description of – and critical reflection upon – how we applied the public OMS approach to bridge the academic-policy divide.

Gender equality levels opportunities for men and women and reduces the initial capital constraints women often face, and yet as entrepreneurship opportunities for women open up in more developed and egalitarian societies, fewer women are choosing entrepreneurship. This paper explores this contradiction as it relates to female economic and political participation in the context of business regulation efficiency.

Drawing on panel data from 89 countries from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey and the Global Gender Gap report, we use random effects regression to examine relationships. Analyses included 252 country-years, and all data used during analyses were at the country level.

Results suggest that equality in economic participation narrows and political participation widens the entrepreneurship gender gap, but a country's business regulation efficiency moderates both relationships negatively.

This study does not distinguish opportunity- and necessity-driven entrepreneurship, and does not consider the survival rates of enterprises and their industries.

Findings are pertinent to policymakers interested in advancing female entrepreneurship. They also apply to female entrepreneurs who must begin to recognize the diversity in work-life preferences among women and men.

A theoretical model is informed by two competing theories, suggesting that in the context of female entrepreneurship, removal of economic and political participation barriers, combined with business regulation efficiency, intensifies the entrepreneurship gender gap.

Guided by feminist perspectives, we critique existing approaches to the study of womenʼs entrepreneurship on epistemological grounds and suggest that the entrepreneurship field needs to recognize gendered assumptions in theorizing. Deploying a feminist framework, we suggest that understanding the “gender gap” in entrepreneurship requires focus on institutional and structural barriers women entrepreneurs face. Existing studies of women entrepreneurs often compare women with men without considering how gender and gender relations impact the very concepts and ideas of entrepreneurship. We propose, therefore, a conceptualization of entrepreneurship that illuminates gender bias and calls attention to the interrelated individual, institutional, and structural barriers in the entrepreneurial process that arrive out of societal and cultural gender norms. Through praxis or engaged practice, we redirect scholarship in the entrepreneurship field, while proposing ways that can promote gender equality in entrepreneurial activities. In all, our gender integrative conceptualization of entrepreneurship contributes to the entrepreneurship field by recognizing and addressing a more expansive realm of influential factors within the entrepreneurial ecosystem that have previously been researched separately.

This paper aims to examine the contextual embeddedness of female entrepreneurship through a focus on gendered institutions. Specifically, it draws upon Scott’s (1995) institutional categories and explores how the three dimensions of gendered institutions combine to explain both a high level of female Total Early-stage Entrepreneurship Activity (TEA) rates and female/male TEA ratios.

Collecting data from the Global Entrepreneurship Research Association, the World Economic Forum and the World Bank for 63 countries, this study uses the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method to explore causal complexity between the regulative, normative and cognitive dimensions of gendered institutions (conditions) and the female TEA rates and the female/male TEA ratios (outcomes).

First, this study confirms the complex interactions occurring among institutional components. Second, the results highlight the key role that gender equality in entrepreneurial cognitions plays in achieving high female entrepreneurship. Third, configurations for the high female TEA rates and the female/male TEA ratios share a high similarity.

The study provides policymakers with a holistic viewpoint and alternate solutions with the aim of promoting female entrepreneurship in their respective countries.

The study highlights gendered institutions beyond general institutions, enriching the literature on the gender and institutional determinants of female entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the application of the fsQCA method in the study helps to enhance the understanding of how institutional components complexly interact to shape female entrepreneurship.

Women’s entrepreneurship is often seen as the solution of both economic growth and gender equality. This is despite academic knowledge of the gendered preconditions for entrepreneurship in many contexts. This paper aims to focus on the gendering of commercial justice, a precondition for entrepreneurship. Informed by gender perspectives on women’s entrepreneurship and previous studies on commercial justice in East Africa, this paper sets out to explore the experiences of urban women entrepreneurs.

The paper is based on an interview study with women entrepreneurs and representatives of support organizations in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. The interviews were conducted in Kiswahili, and access was enabled through dialogues with local partner organizations such as the Tanzanian Chamber of Commerce.

Findings are that with formal legal rights, the informal institutions imply that the marital status of the women, and the attitude of their husbands, is the overarching determinants for the commercial justice perceived as available to them. This has implication for many policy areas, such as entrepreneurship support, women’s empowerment and labour market policy. Theoretically, the findings highlight the importance of studying the informal institutions affecting women’s entrepreneurship around the globe. Concerning commercial justice in particular, three dimensions of gendering are identified.

The paper is based on a qualitative interview study. Further studies with varying methods are needed to further explore the gendering of commercial justice in Tanzania, East Africa and beyond.

A major practical implication of the study is the insight that business for development, will not automatically lead to business for equality, on a general level. The gender bias is also reproduced in everyday business life, for example, thorough access to commercial justice. Special measures to target the gender equality issue are, therefore, necessary. Another implication of the findings regard the importance of Alternative Dispute Resolution initiatives, affordable to women small and medium enterprise-owners.

While other obstacles to women’s entrepreneurship in the developing contexts have been well explored, the gendering of perceived commercial justice has not received sufficient attention in previous studies. Studies applying a gender theoretical perspective on entrepreneurship in the explored context are still needed.

Despite the healthy growth in studies and publications in recent years in relation to the expanding paradigm of gender and entrepreneurship, and notwithstanding the success of this very journal, from the perspective of the author, the field remains overly dominated by a focus on female and women's entrepreneurship. Conversely, there are few studies on masculinity and entrepreneurship and the role of men in shaping gendered entrepreneurship. In addition, few male entrepreneurship scholars choose to write in this niche and specialised field. Indeed, there is a discernible imbalance in the literature in relation to what can be termed as “silent” and “silenced” masculinities. In this reflection, the study aims to look back at his career as an entrepreneurship and gender scholar, considering why this situation exists.

This is an invited, reflective essay written in an auto-ethnographic style containing personal viewpoints.

In the feminist-inspired gender and entrepreneurship literature, “Patriarchy” and the entrepreneurial “strawman” are blamed for the problems associated with the “silent” and silenced female entrepreneur. Much of the gendered literature concentrates on gendered female stereotypes and in particular on negative elements of these. The main finding is that the common assumption of the female as proxy for gender has, to date, prevented the consideration of the full spectrum of gendered identities. These issues are explored, and a call is made for more in-depth research into masculinity and entrepreneurship.

This reflection presents some novel thoughts on how to advance the debate on gender scholarship and in particular masculinity.

The purpose of this study is twofold, being the first to grasp a broad picture of entrepreneurship determinants in Qatar, and second, to explore the intermediate effect of gender upon other factors affecting the propensity to become an entrepreneur and highlight gender heterogeneity. Combining theories on entrepreneurship determinants and gender, the study analyses the role of education (general and specific to enterprise), skill perception, social context and fear to fail as determinants of new venture creation in Qatar. The objective of the study is to appraise the determinants of the entrepreneurial activity in Qatar and understand if they hold across genders in terms of significance and magnitude. If so, policy actions can be adjusted to overcome gender gaps. This study aims to design policy recommendations to reinforce the Qatari entrepreneurial ecosystem and promote positive discrimination towards women initiatives in the Gulf region.

To understand male and female propensity to entrepreneurial activity in Qatar, a database from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) was used, considering data from 2014, with a sample that includes 4,272 individuals. To explore how the explanatory variables affect entrepreneurial propensity and if they hold significance across genders, three logistic regressions were run, the first including the entire sample, and the second and third separating individuals according to the gender. Then, to statistically appraise the differences among groups, a Kruskal–Wallis test was run to evidence group heterogeneity. Marginal effects of the model reinforce gender differences. The analysis was performed using Stata.

Different patterns of entrepreneurial propensity can be found among genders, allowing the exploration male and female determinants. The analysis shows that Qatari women are less prone to start a business when compared to men in equal conditions. For women, age is a deterring factor, contrarily to men. Both genders seem to be unconstrained by the fear to fail, still the self-perception of skills has a stronger effect on women.

First, this study is restricted to the GEM database and covers 4,272 individuals whose representativeness cannot be statistically proved, despite the robustness of the sample size. Second, due to data limitations, the inclusion of theoretically relevant additional variables to the explanation of gender differences, such as economic and institutional determinants of entrepreneurial activity in the country under study, becomes infeasible.

Despite the conceptual and empirical limitations, the conclusions of the study fulfil literature gaps and offer quantitative and econometric evidences and which allow drawing policy recommendations.

This study sheds a new light about the policy specificities needed to overcome gender differences and to equalise male and female entrepreneurial activity.

The study identifies gender differences in entrepreneurial propensity. The potential differences are firstly put in theoretical terms and followed by an exploratory analysis comprising statistical analysis and econometric estimations. The results allow examining the profile of male and female entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs, the determinants of entrepreneurial initiatives and gender gaps. The study helps policy makers to elaborate adequate strategies to foster gender equality on entrepreneurship, aiming to increase overall entrepreneurial activity and consequently socio-economic development.

The purpose of this paper is to direct attention to recent research on women’s entrepreneurship with a focus on university education. A literature review and a summary of authors’ selected papers provide both a context for and an introduction to the articles in this special issue.

This introduction provides an overview of the literature on female entrepreneurship with specific reference to the context of university education. Searches on Web of Science and in this journal were conducted to provide a systematic overview of the area of research. This introductory article ends with a set of propositions for future research engagement.

This paper finds that the quantum of past research endeavours remains limited despite the growing significance of the subject. This paper also finds that developing a focused approach that is based on a female ontology of entrepreneurship, and one that identifies specific contexts, and appropriate methodological considerations that enable enquiry at different levels, are of value to future research. This paper offers four different propositions that address key areas or fields of entrepreneurship research.

This paper provides a unique set of propositions together with a framework which helps to both explore new knowledge creation and locate new research within the main fields of entrepreneurship while providing room for extending those fields.

This overview provides a framework for universities and policymakers to enable them to take into consideration the critical issues of entrepreneurship in general, and female entrepreneurship in particular, when developing programmes and tools for university education.

This paper provides a summary of the trends in research on women’s entrepreneurship with reference to university education. This leads to the development of a set of propositions and a framework for identifying and exploring new research questions that need to be addressed to close important research gaps in the field of entrepreneurship.