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Women in Business
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The role of women in entrepreneurship, management and corporate governance is regarded as central to the development and welfare of economies. Since the early 1980s, there has been increased interest in women managers and entrepreneurs,
from an interdisciplinary approach, combining, for example, sociology, psychology, management and organisational studies and economics. Nowadays, research on women in management and organisations is continuously and rapidly evolving. Research on how women face new business challenges within organisations—as entrepreneurs, owners, managers, as well as workers—can contribute to understanding the new drivers a ecting value creation dynamics in our knowledge-based society. Accordingly, this book offers some insights on how women create, process and share knowledge in their business activity through the application and exploitation of novel creative ideas and solutions.
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Startup ecosystems have a positive impact on the creation of new businesses and the entire economy and accordingly receive attention from both academics and politicians. However, while entrepreneurial ecosystems reflect a high level of entrepreneurial activity, they differ significantly in terms of the proportion of female founders, which means some ecosystems do not fulfill their true potential. This study uses qualitative comparative analysis to explore the combinations of ecosystem characteristics explaining a high proportion of female founders in the 20 most successful startup ecosystems worldwide. The results suggest two different configurations explaining a high proportion of female founders and reveal which issues require attention on a metropolitan level and which issues might require national policy makers to become involved. These findings contribute to the ecosystem literature and link to the stream of female entrepreneurship.
A pressing question in entrepreneurial research is where opportunities come from. Prior research indicates that some opportunities stem from known parameters and outcomes; some are discovered through engagement with unknown but knowable factors; and others are unknowable until brought into being through a creative process. This paper explores the second and more prevailing view in entrepreneurial research – that individuals discover business opportunity – and examines how high-growth entrepreneurs perceive opportunity through engagement with the world. Survey results, based on responses from 165 women entrepreneurs in high-growth startups, indicate that individuals with a strong discover mindset act and think in ways that support opportunity perception. Coupled with a belief in her abilities, the entrepreneur is more likely to move from opportunity perception to new venture creation. Results from semi-structured interviews with women from the same population elucidate the survey findings and yield implications for entrepreneurial theory and practice.
The starting point of this article is the assumption that images of work and organizing produced by popular culture both reflect and shape actual practices. Among various genres of popular culture, soap operas deserve more attention. This article analyses three local soap operas: one Italian, one Swedish and one South African. All three focus on family life — a focus typical for the genre. We trace the side topic of women at work and women and work, on the assumption that its marginality renders it less likely to contain intentional messages from the creators of the series, and thus more likely to reflect the taken-for-granted beliefs underpinning everyday life and contributing to their reproduction and maintenance. We trace the series' connections to local contexts but also look for commonalities that may be characteristic of this genre of popular culture.
Research shows that firms started by women underperform those started by men but the relationship may not be as straightforward as previously thought. Using a sample of 4,540 Korean ventures in 2002 we investigated the effects of three firm characteristics—resources, industry, and regional location—on firm performance. Results indicate that firms started by male entrepreneurs, compared to female, have greater firm assets, compete in high-technology manufacturing industries, and are more likely to locate in clustered regions. Further, these firm characteristics are positively associated with domestic and international firm performance. Findings suggest firm resource and context characteristics fully mediate the entrepreneur gender–firm performance relationship. Overall, gender is not a determinant of domestic or international firm performance.
Botswana, like many African nations, has a patriarchal history in which women have not been socially or economically empowered. In an attempt to accrue benefits to disadvantaged groups such as women, the nation has recently embarked on a new tourism policy that shifts the emphasis away from five-star safaris toward village-based cultural tourism. Utilizing empowerment and freedom frameworks of poverty alleviation, this paper examines the extent and ways in which people living and working in three villages in southern Botswana feel that the new tourism policy has facilitated female empowerment. In total, approximately fifteen semi-structured interviews will be conducted with women and men living and working in villages of southern Botswana. The bulk of these (approximately 75%) will be conducted with women. The remainder will incorporate men who are in a position to have an impact on women’s empowerment. To date, the study has covered three communities with eleven women and three men from six ethnicities to determine their perceived level of empowerment resulting from cultural tourism developments in their villages. Preliminary findings have identified several ways in which the new policies might be contributing to female empowerment and poverty alleviation as well as some barriers to fulfillment of equality and opportunity. Also, the study uncovers the meaning of empowerment as revealed by women in Botswana. The study will therefore point to ways in which the goals of the policy might best be achieved.
While there is a growing body of work at the country level related to gender dimension of entrepreneurship, surprisingly little has yet been attempted to enhance our understanding of the impact of alternative national business and cultural environments on female entrepreneurship. We develop hypotheses to explain how institutional variation might impact differently on male and female entrepreneurship. In particular we hypothesise that women are less likely than men to undertake entrepreneurial activity in countries where the rule of law is weaker and the state sector is larger. We further consider how institutions affect the probabilities of men and women to aspire to higher growth projects, and analyse in detail the differential impact of gender specific aspects of the rule of law on male and female entrepreneurship and on higher aspiration growth projects.
While the adoption of Social Innovation (SI) in the governance and policy domain has
fueled a rapidly expanding scholarly literature, this field has become characterized by conceptual
ambiguity and a diversity of definitions and research settings. This present situation inhibits the
integration of findings. This paper traces the content, scope and relatively short history of modern
social innovation research across disciplines by applying network and bibliometric analyses, and
explores their relevance to innovation studies. Based on data from 172 publications, we analyze
scholarly works that directly address the social innovation topic, allowing us to identify the
precedence, dynamics and the current map of social innovation research as an emerging field of
study. Our analysis suggests that the SI field is grounded in four distinct intellectual communities
arising through a somewhat organized diffusion process: 1) Community Psychology; 2) Creativity
research; 3) Social and societal challenges; 4) Local development. The interest of SI in the areas
of management and entrepreneurship is only very recent and is currently reflected within existing
communities. We forge conceptual bridges between the two (currently very separate) domains of
social innovation and innovation studies, and the implications of our finding for further research
and policy are also discussed.
This study explores gendered lending and marketing practices of start-up capital to women entrepreneurs in South Africa. A multi-method research design, comprising of 6 in-depth interviews with experts, and a survey of 50 women entrepreneurs was adopted using convenience and snowball sampling techniques, respectively. The findings revealed that women entrepreneurs are experiencing gendered discriminatory practices embedded in lending practices used by financial institutions, thereby discouraging them to venture into non-traditional industries. Whilst financial providers may know their products well, many emerging women entrepreneurs in South Africa may find it difficult and costly to obtain information on the thousands of financial products available. Hence, women entrepreneurs resort to taking greater risks than necessary in order to get their businesses off the ground. Educating women on financial matters is extremely important if South Africa is to benefit fully from the untapped entrepreneurial talent that women possess. The study adds voice to the discriminatory lending practices faced by women entrepreneurs in developing countries. Future research could explore the feasibility of establishing a financial institution which caters specifically for the needs of women.
This study investigates gender differences in the effects of entrepreneurial impetus and human capital on habitual entrepreneurship, defined as starting multiple new ventures in a serial or portfolio manner. Using the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics II (PSED II) data on nascent entrepreneurs, the effects of three impetus factors (business opportunity, mentors and nature of work) and four human capital factors (education, employment breadth, managerial experience and entrepreneurial capabilities) are explored in terms of the differential effects they have on habitual entrepreneurship in men and women. Results show an overall greater effect of human capital on women's habitual entrepreneurship than on men's, and that different human capital factors appear to drive multiple startups for women and for men. Analyses also show that different impetus factors drive women and men to start new repeat ventures. Results are discussed in the context of learning theory and entrepreneurial activity.