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This study explores the relationship between economic freedom and gender ideologies on the allocation of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship across countries. Opportunity entrepreneurship is typically understood as one’s best option for work, whereas necessity entrepreneurship describes the choice as driven by no better option for work. Specifically, we examine how economic freedom (i.e. each country’s policies that facilitate voluntary exchange) and gender ideologies (i.e. each country’s propensity for gendered separate spheres) affect the distribution of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship across countries.

We construct our sample by matching data from the following country-level sources: the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s Adult Population Survey (APS), the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom Index (EFI), the European/World Value Survey’s Integrated Values Survey (IVS) gender equality index, and other covariates from the IVS, Varieties of Democracy (V-dem) World Bank (WB) databases. Our final sample consists of 729 observations from 109 countries between 2006 and 2018. Entrepreneurial activity motivations are measured by the ratio of the percentage of women’s opportunity-driven total nascent and early-stage entrepreneurship to the percentage of female necessity-driven total nascent and early-stage entrepreneurship at the country level. Due to a first-order autoregressive process and heteroskedastic cross-sectional dependence in our panel, we estimate a fixed-effect regression with robust standard errors clustered by country.

After controlling for multiple macro-level factors, we find two interesting findings. First, economic freedom positively affects the ratio of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship. We find that the size of government, sound money, and business and credit regulations play the most important role in shaping the distribution of contextual motivations over time and between countries. However, this effect appears to benefit efficiency and innovation economies more than factor economies in our sub-sample analysis. Second, gender ideologies of political equality positively affect the ratio of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship, and this effect is most pronounced for efficiency economies.

This study offers one critical contribution to the entrepreneurship literature by demonstrating how economic freedom and gender ideologies shape the distribution of contextual motivation for women’s entrepreneurship cross-culturally. We answer calls to better understand the variation within women’s entrepreneurship instead of comparing women’s and men’s entrepreneurial activity. As a result, our study sheds light on how structural aspects of societies shape the allocation of women’s entrepreneurial motivations through their institutional arrangements.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the growth motivations of women owning and managing home-based businesses (HBBs) in Iran.

The qualitative approach was used by 20 in-depth interviews with Iranian female HBBs owners/mangers.

The business growth motivations of women owning and managing HBBs were categorized in intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Results show that women owning and managing HBBs are motivated to growth their businesses by intrinsic motivations including need for achievement, need for independence, proving competency and socio-cultural concerns. Also, they are motivated by some extrinsic motivations including financial issues, fame, positive feedback from others and the problems of working at home.

Given the importance of entrepreneurial growth, the findings provide additional insight into growth motivations of women entrepreneurs.

The results of this study can help policymakers to develop purposeful growth policies for women’s HBBs that are commensurate with the motivations.

Also, women owning and managing HBBs themselves could better concentrate on enhancing business growth by deepening their understanding of their business growth motivations.

The paper contributes to the scarce knowledge about women-owned HBBs in Iran, a rapidly growing, developing country, which can provide better insights from a less explored context. Moreover, as there is only a limited understanding of HBB growth, especially in relation to women business owners, the study results can prove helpful for researchers in the domain of female entrepreneurs. Also, this paper contributes to theory on the motivation for entrepreneurship and to research on growth motivation.

To investigate women's corporate networks, and the reported benefits for the women and their employers. To gain insight into the motivation for these voluntary activities, by drawing on organisational citizenship theory.

The paper explores the issue using in‐depth interviews with chairs and organisers of 12 women's networks, and triangulated the data with an email survey resulting in 164 responses from network members in five companies.

The paper identifies how networks were set up and managed, as well as the benefits that accrue to the organisation, the leaders and the members. Key findings were the wealth of voluntarily contributed extra‐role behaviours, and totally business‐oriented view of the activities presented by network leaders. More senior women were more likely to report prosocial behaviours such as driving change and supporting others. Organisational citizenship theory provided a lens through which to draw insight into actors' motivations for supporting corporate networking.

This is a study of only 12 corporate networks within large UK companies, but findings should be useful for any employers or senior women thinking about starting or refreshing a corporate women's network.

Women and their employers appear to benefit strongly from being involved in corporate networking. Evidence suggests that employers should support internal women's networks, given the organisational citizenship behaviours voluntarily contributed for their benefit.

This paper is the first to investigate how women's corporate networks are organised, and how their activities benefit not just the women but also the employer. Organisational citizenship theory provides insight into motivation for such initiatives. The findings should be of interest not just for those involved in women‐in‐management studies, but also to organisational citizenship and networking researchers.

In the last twenty years, the women’s movement has resulted in a greater representation of women in once male-dominated venues, such as the job force and higher education. Women currently represent nearly 43% of those in the United States labor market, and it is expected that four in every five women ages 25–54 will be employed by the year 2000 (Hoyt, 1988; U.S. Department of Labor, 1995). Despite women’s increasing participation in the world of work, they continue to choose occupations that represent the stereotypically feminine range of occupations, meaning less pay and less status (Betz & Fitzgerald, 1987). For example, women are still underrepresented in engineering, architecture, and the physical sciences (Eccles, 1994; U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau, 1995). These gender-based occupational patterns are also evidenced in college enrollment; women continue to comprise the majority in academic majors that are considered traditionally feminine, such as early childhood, elementary, and secondary education, library science, nursing, and home economics, whereas men are the predominant majors in physics, chemistry, architecture, and engineering (Bartholomew & Schnorr, 1994; National Science Foundation, 1990).

The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of factors affecting the acceptance and use of technology on the factors affecting women’s entrepreneurship motivation.

This study was conducted with 156 women entrepreneurs in Turkey in February 2019. A mixed method evaluation design has been adopted in the study.

The findings revealed that effort expectancy was negatively associated with behaviour intention and push factor and positively associated with pull factor. Performance expectancy was positively associated with balance factor, push factor and behaviour intention. Hedonic motivation was positively associated with behaviour intention and emotional factor. Behaviour intention was negatively associated with use behaviour. Facilitating conditions was positively associated with push factor. Habit was positively associated with behaviour intention and negatively associated with pull, push, balance and emotional factors. Necessities and habit were not motivation factors for women entrepreneurs.

The sample was restricted to women entrepreneurs, limiting the generalizability of the findings.

The practical implications of the study show that effort expectancy, performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, facilitating conditions and habit are the key factors for the women’s entrepreneurship motivation. Women’s entrepreneurship commissions to be established in chambers of commerce and industry can improve entrepreneurial motivation.

This is the first study that reveals the effects of technology acceptance and use behaviours on women’s entrepreneurship motivation. Theoretical background, discussion, managerial implications, limitations and recommendations for future studies are discussed.

Family businesses have contributed significantly to economic growth in various countries, including Indonesia. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic reduced the world economy and caused economic shocks in various business sectors. Women successors face significant challenges in overcoming family business problems during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in terms of resilience, which is seen as the organization's prominent ability for sustainability in a turbulent environment. Thus, this study aims to explore women's initiatives and propose a framework for family business resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia.

This study uses a qualitative method with a case study approach to explore women's initiatives in family business resilience during the COVID-19 period. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with five women's successors of family businesses in Indonesia. Triangulation was used to test data validity. Meanwhile, data analysis uses the Miles–Huberman technique: data reduction, data display and conclusion drawing/verification.

This study found that women have the initiative to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic to develop and implement resilience in the family business. This study proposes a framework for factors that enhance family business resilience, including strategic decision-making (adaptive capacity, strategy renewal and appropriation capacity), strategic factors (successor motivation, successor competence and family support) and successor incremental program. Women have a long-term orientation toward the sustainability of their family businesses and can overcome various conflicts. The stereotypical view of women's leadership in family businesses has experienced a shift in which capability and competence are the main factors in recognizing women's leadership.

This study contributes to understanding women's roles in the resilience of family businesses under extreme stress during the pandemic. This study proposes a framework for family business resilience. In addition, this study adds new insights into the specific context of managing family business systems during the COVID-19 pandemic based on the resource-based view (RBV) and strategic management approach.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors which motivate women's informal micro‐entrepreneurship in Malaysia.

The qualitative analysis employed in this paper is based upon empirical findings from field work conducted in the state of Penang on the north‐western coast of Peninsular Malaysia. In total, 39 hawkers (petty traders) were interviewed using an interview guide which contained open‐ended questions regarding work‐life history, labor market choices and conditions of work. The paper presents two selected case stories, as well as the general findings across the whole sample.

In contrast to the view that women's informal micro‐entrepreneurship is motivated only by “involuntary exclusion from the labor market” or “poverty”, this paper has found that women's micro‐entrepreneurship can be motivated by a wide range of factors including: to earn an income; interest in doing business; increased flexibility and autonomy; possibility to combine with family obligations; and re‐negotiating spatial practices. Conclusive with previous studies it also argues that necessity and choice may be “co‐present” in the motives to enter into entrepreneurship.

The limited sample of this study has implications for the generalizability of results. Further studies into the women's micro‐entrepreneurial activities in Malaysia are therefore encouraged.

Women's micro‐entrepreneurship is increasingly being promoted as a way to create growth and development (particularly through micro‐credit schemes). Increasing knowledge around motivational factors, performance and conditions of work for women informal micro‐entrepreneurs is therefore important when trying to establish appropriate policies.

There are very few studies in the Malaysian context which focus upon women's informal micro‐entrepreneurship in general and hawking in particular. This study therefore presents new knowledge around women's informal micro‐entrepreneurship in Malaysia.

This paper aims to deal with a study aimed at clarifying the relationship between the dimensions of the perceived transformational leadership style and work motivation in a sample of female employees.

A total of 168 Lithuanian employees participated in the empirical study. Work motivation was assessed using the work extrinsic and intrinsic motivation scale (Tremblay et al., 2009). The perceived transformational leadership style was assessed with the help of the transformational leadership inventory (Podsakoff et al., 1990).

The results revealed that both intrinsic and extrinsic work motivation of female employees was enhanced when the leader was perceived as a person articulating the vision of the future, providing an appropriate role model, fostering the acceptance of group goals and applying intellectual stimulation. High-performance expectations of the transformational leader lead to an increased level of women’s extrinsic motivation.

This study contributes to the limited empirical research into the role of discrete dimensions of transformational leadership in determining both intrinsic and extrinsic work motivation of female employees.

This paper aims to identify the specific contextual constraints that women might face in becoming entrepreneurs; to correlate these constraints with the motivations that have determined this choice; and to ascertain how strongly constraints and motivations are correlated with individual rewards in terms of personal satisfaction and economic payoffs.

The empirical base is a survey that the authors conducted among female entrepreneurs in a Southern province of Italy in 2012. Data are analyzed through a correspondence and cluster analysis. The socio-economic context of the province within which these female-led firms operate is taken into account by means of a correspondence canonical analysis.

In terms of results: first, two-thirds of female entrepreneurs in the province are positively motivated, and this is a determining factor in their choice to become entrepreneurs. This translates into they also being satisfied with the choice they made. Second, contrary to the expectations, being positively motivated and satisfied holds both for firms operating in more dynamic and demanding sectors and for small firms using little financial or human capital.

The chosen research approach has allowed to identify the most important decisional variables that affect female entrepreneurial choice. However, as most of the variables are categorical, the research’s results remain descriptive.

Positive motivations and personal rewards are clearly relevant for women making an entrepreneurial choice. However, they are not enough to stimulate fully the potential for growth of their enterprises: education and a social environment conducive to female creative expression are also necessary. To this end, the authors suggest that an important function of change could be played in particular by universities by fostering a culture of creativity and entrepreneurship.

By stressing the connections between positive motivations and wellbeing, the authors suggest that the promotion of women’s entrepreneurial choices through networks and education generates more than purely economic benefits. It also has positive effects on their quality of life and on social welfare as well.

This paper responds to a need – not yet fulfilled in the literature – to better understand the relations between women’s motivation, satisfaction and the type of business selected.