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Government attention to women’s entrepreneurship has increased in the past two decades; however, there are few cross-cultural studies to inform policy development. This paper aims to draw on gender and institutional theory to report on the status of female-focused small and medium-sized enterprises/entrepreneurship policies and to ask how – and to what extent – do women’s entrepreneurship policies differ among countries?

A common methodological approach is used to identify gaps in the policy-practice nexus.

The study highlights countries where policy is weak but practice is strong, and vice versa.

The study’s data were restricted to policy documents and observations of practices and initiatives on the ground.

The findings have implications for policy makers in respect of support for women’s entrepreneurship. Recommendations for future research are advanced.

The paper contributes to extant knowledge and understanding about entrepreneurship policy, specifically in relation to women’s entrepreneurship. It is also one of the few studies to use a common methodological approach to explore and compare women’s entrepreneurship policies in 13 countries.

The purpose of this article is to present a framework for research on gender and innovation. The framework is developed based on a review of the current literature in the area; it is applied to provide a context for the articles in this special issue and to offer suggestions for future research.

The article relies on a literature review of gender and innovation. Additional literature searches on Scopus were conducted to provide an overview of the area. In addition, comparative analogies are sought from research fields of gender and entrepreneurship as well as gender and technology.

The article presents the scope and issues in the current research on gender and innovation. Based on the overview, research in this area is conducted in various disciplines applying a variety of methodological approaches. In order to make sense of the current research, the paper developed a framework consisting of various approaches to, gender and innovation; these include gender as a variable, construction and process and innovation as a result, process and discourse.

Based on the review, several recommendations for future research are made. First, future research should question the connection between technology and innovation and purposefully seek innovation activity also in low-tech and service sectors and firms. Innovation scholars and policy makers should not primarily target radical and product innovations but should be equally interested in incremental and process innovations. Second, understanding women's innovation activity needs to be embedded in understanding the normative frames and structural factors at play. A particular theoretical call is linked to the study of power and innovation. Third, it is imperative to develop and apply new methodological approaches and new operationalizations of innovation and innovators.

By focusing on gender and innovation, it is possible to discover innovation as a gender biased phenomenon. Policy makers should bear this in mind when developing innovation policies.

An understanding of innovation literature and innovation policy as gender biased has important social implications. Discovering gendered structures is important to further develop gender equal societies. Further, innovation may be hampered by biases in the understanding of the concept, including gender biases.

This introductory article puts forward a framework on gender and innovation that helps to make sense of the current state-of-the-art and to develop new research questions that need to be addressed for further theorising within the field.

The purpose of this study is to explore an optimal research design for research on women entrepreneurs involved in negotiating term sheets for private equity capital. This research explores new ways for researchers to connect with such current “invisibles” through the use of a mixed method and mixed mode research design to expand sampling options and secure respondent participation. The authors discuss existing data sets that have been used as secondary sources for data on financing of companies and consider their inadequacy for research questions about process issues in negotiation. The authors present process-related findings regarding the efficacy of the research design.

This paper reviews research on research methodology, incorporating a discussion of practices outside of the entrepreneurship discipline to discover effective practices for identifying respondents and data not currently captured in entrepreneurship data sources. The respondents were found through social media sites, angel networks, University networks and via identification through a proprietary financial intelligence database.

An optimal research design to identify women business owners of growth-oriented firms who have negotiated private equity should consider mixed methods designs and mixed modes, including the use of digital networks that signal to potential respondents that research is being done.

Although the authors developed the multi-method, mixed mode (MMMM) research design, the sample size is still relatively small. This raises concerns about generalizability to the larger population and limits statistical analysis more suitable with larger data sets. However, the MMMM research design has enabled the authors to reach a difficult target sample. It has proven effective, although a longer time frame would have been helpful.

All of the large scale databases in entrepreneurship have limitations in providing optimal sampling frames for process-related research. The present research study was able to use conventional networks, social media sites and angel networks to connect with women business owners who have raised private equity, but who lack visibility in current data sets. The study shows that through the use of multiple methods, women entrepreneurs can be researched and some will share their experiences about process issues. The sample size was small and the quantitative data cannot be generalized. However, the methodology works and allows researchers to explore experiences that are not captured in existing data sets.

Entrepreneurship researchers can connect with “invisibles” by becoming more “social” and using social media sites that are used by women entrepreneurs. Researchers may not have immediate access to women entrepreneurs through these means, but rather they need to develop interpersonal contacts, build a social presence and trust to recruit respondents to complete online questionnaire studies about substantive topics such as negotiating term sheets for equity investments in their companies.

This paper summarizes the “research on research methodologies” in entrepreneurship, reviews secondary data sources and discusses their limitations for specific types of research questions. A review of the value of MMMM research designs and best practices in online survey research outside of entrepreneurship provides insights into the incorporation of digital tools in other disciplines.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which various theories of capital structure “fit” in the case of new technology‐based firms.

This study uses data from the Kauffman Firm Survey, a longitudinal data set of over 4,000 firms in the USA. Descriptive statistics and multivariate results are provided.

The authors' findings reveal that new technology‐based firms demonstrate different financing patterns than firms that are not technology‐based.

Although some support was found for both the Pecking Order and Life Cycle theories, the results also indicate that technology‐based entrepreneurs are both willing and able to raise substantial amounts of capital from external sources.

Technology‐based entrepreneurs need external sources of equity, in particular, in order to launch and grow their firms.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first article to test specific theories of capital structure using a large sample of new technology‐based firms in the USA.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of small loans on new firm performance using data from the second Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics, a large longitudinal data set of new firms in the USA. Contrary to prior research which suggests that small or microloans primarily benefit entrepreneurs who experience disadvantages in the marketplace, the findings revealed no significant differences in loan source or loan amount by gender, ethnicity, or employment status during the early years of the firm. The findings did reveal, however, that the motivations (push vs pull) of the entrepreneur were a determinant of loan source. From this, the authors begin to develop a theory of financial bricolage based on the premise that small loans secured at key points in time can make a significant difference on firm performance for all types of entrepreneurs, not just those who have traditionally be classified as “disadvantaged.”

The data for this study was taken from the Panel Study on Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED II). The authors focussed on business performance measures over the six years of that study to reassess existing findings on relationships between microfinance and underperformance, especially among women, ethnic and unemployed entrepreneurs, from a financial bricolage perspective. Specifically, the authors will assess the impact of small or microloans on business performance over time by tracking the role of financial sources, amount of money borrowed, background characteristics, and motivation to start a business (i.e. push or pull).

The results also revealed no significant difference by gender, ethnicity, or employment status in the source of amounts of small loans secured during the first two years of the businesses. Thus, consistent with the theory of financial bricolage, all types of entrepreneurs engaged in seeking out small loans during the early years of their businesses’ existence.

Although using the PSED II has many advantages, it is not protected from methodological pitfalls. One such potential disadvantage is the fact that this database allows the authors to understand the development of US-based nascent entrepreneurs, but overlooks other countries. Future research efforts should be focussed on surveying nascent entrepreneurs from other countries and cultures to expand the understanding of the relations between small loans and financial sources on business performance worldwide. This could be most useful for intensifying research in regions that generate more push and/or pull entrepreneurs. A second disadvantage inherent in the PSED is that interviews in follow-up surveys may have become impossible over time, resulting in missing data. In addition, the reasons for being unable to reach interviewees are not always clear. In the entrepreneurial realm, these reasons have a great impact on the understanding of the development of new businesses. Interviewees’ businesses may have gone bankrupt, merged with other firms and thus changed contact details, gone global and therefore left the country, etc. (Delmar and Shane, 2003); these could bias the results. A final potential weakness in the PSED is that the data are based on entrepreneurs’ self-reports which are known to be prone to many kinds of response bias.

By offering practical education aimed at enhancing the financial performance of entrepreneurs, the authors believe that they can meet the challenges posed by the research (e.g. Du Rietz and Henrekson, 2000; Parker, 2004; Pfeiffer and Reize, 2000; Reynolds et al., 2002) on performance gaps between entrepreneurs with different background characteristics and those embarking on entrepreneurship with different motivations (push vs pull). In line with the financial bricolage theory, the results may aid governmental bodies, educational and academic institutions oriented toward entrepreneurs, and small businesses, in constructing programs that will train entrepreneurs to be attentive to the diverse range of potentially available resources, including small loans and different financial sources.

The research challenges the necessity-opportunity simplistic categorization and builds upon prior work in the field of bricolage, or the practice of “making do with whatever is at hand,” to begin developing a theory of “financial bricolage.” It is the contention that all new businesses are resource-constrained due to challenges posed by asymmetric information. Thus, new businesses, in general, do not have access to a full range of funding alternatives. In light of this, small loans may be critical for the survival and success of not only necessity-based businesses but opportunity-based businesses as well. The results and findings bear this out.

On April 2, 1987, IBM unveiled a series of long‐awaited new hardware and software products. The new computer line, dubbed the Personal Systems 30, 50, 60, and 80, seems destined to replace the XT and AT models that are the mainstay of the firm's current personal computer offerings. The numerous changes in hardware and software, while representing improvements on previous IBM technology, will require users purchasing additional computers to make difficult choices as to which of the two IBM architectures to adopt.

In the wake of numerous late twentieth century cult disasters, and most recently, the September 11 tragedy, this paper considers the question, why do people obey outrageous commands from charismatic authorities? According to Gary Becker, “the economic ap‐proach provides a valuable unified framework for understanding all human behavior” (Becker 1976:14). We test this generalization by attempting to explain, in terms of rational choice theory, the behavior of two members of infamous cults, the Manson Family and the Ragneesh Foundation International. Each of these subjects slavishly obeyed orders from a charismatic personality, one to the extent of committing murder. Were they mentally ill or rationally maximizing their utility? We consider these theoretical options. In August of 1969 Charles Manson ordered several of his followers to commit gruesome murders for the purpose of initiating the apocalypse. They obeyed. In late 1978, Jim Jones commanded over 900 members of the Peoples Temple to commit suicide. They obeyed. From 1981 to 1985, executing orders to build utopia perceived to come from their guru, members of the Ragneesh Foundation International terrorized the inhabitants of Antelope, Oregon. Similarly, followers of Osama Bin Laden are suspected of carrying out the disastrous suicide murders of September 11. Over past decades, the incidence of violence involving submission to a charismatic leader appears to be escalating. Increasingly the public must contend with the “awesome power” of charisma, “enshrouded in a mystique of irrationality” (Bradley 1987: 3–4). The extent to which followers committing criminal acts of obedience may be held accountable has become a pressing legal issue. How can this kind of volatile religious commitment be explained? In recent years, experts on cults have experimented with rational choice theory. According to economist, Gary Becker, “the economic approach provides a valuable unified framework for understanding all human behavior” (Becker 1976: 14). We test this extravagant claim with two cases of seemingly irrational commitment to a charismatic cult leader—one a follower of Bhagwan Rajneesh, the other a Manson Family killer. These subjects are not representative cult members but rather were chosen because they demonstrated an exceptional loyalty to their leaders that has been widely construed as the result of brainwashing or insanity. Rather than survey data, we rely on autobiographical testimonies since they offer a more detailed and comprehensive view of the thought processes that motivate behavior, the subject matter of this paper.

The concept of civic engagement, defined independently of engagement in political, social, or vocational organizations connects the parallel concept of followership to civic engagement with two kinds of follower motivation emerging: mission-oriented and leader- oriented. The mission-driven follower “owns” the cause and supports it with an ongoing, sustainable energy, while the leader-driven follower participates based on esteem for the leader. In the latter case, the leader must continually renew the follower’s engagement through direct requests and exhortation. This research has identified an area of emergent opportunity in the leadership and followership literature, conceptualizing civic engagement as most significantly motivated by mission-driven followership. Practically, mission-driven followers should be sought out and encouraged to volunteer because they support the mission and are more likely to stay with the organization through leadership changes. Theoretically, the addition of a quantitative analysis of mission-driven and leader-driven followership contributes to the emerging scholarship on followership.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the key issues involved in situations within the workplace when an employee goes through gender reassignment, in order to consider how such situations might be managed more effectively.

It analyses a case study from a national public sector organisation in the UK where a transsexual person went through male to female gender reassignment. The case was compiled via participant observation and one to one interviews with the key players in the process (managers, human resource staff and colleagues as well as the individual).

Key issues discussed include the effects on trust and relationships at work, harassment, the role of trade unions, training, and other support. It explores the difficulty of gaining acceptance for a transsexual, and links this to literature on managing diversity and change management.

The case study is in the public sector in the UK, but implications are valid for other organisations.

Makes suggestions for managing transsexual issues for management and for trade unions, whilst being cautious about the extent of acceptance that can be achieved.

Existing literature tends to focus on the transsexual individual's own viewpoint, and guidelines from transgender support groups. This study includes the roles and reactions of all the key people involved within a real organisational case, and offers insights into the issues involved when managing transsexual cases in the workplace.