Research articles on women's entrepreneurship reveal, in spite of intentions to the contrary and in spite of inconclusive research results, a tendency to recreate the idea of women as being secondary to men and of women's businesses being of less significance or, at best, as being a complement. Based on a discourse analysis, this article discusses what research practices cause these results. It suggests new research directions that do not reproduce women's subordination but capture more and richer aspects of women's entrepreneurship.

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Why research on women entrepreneurs needs new directions

This paper has three overarching objectives. The first is to document the development of the body of work known as women's entrepreneurship research. The second is to assess the contributions of this work, specifically vis-a-vis the broader entrepreneurship literature. The third is to discuss how this broader literature poses challenges (both difficulties as well as opportunities) for scholarship on female entrepreneurs. We approach these objectives from the standpoint of informed pluralism, seeking to explore whether and how women's entrepreneurship research offers extensions to—and can be extended by—general research on entrepreneurs and their ventures.

Research on Women Entrepreneurs: Challenges to (and from) the Broader Entrepreneurship Literature?

Most would agree that the dramatic growth and participation of women in entrepreneurship and the expanding body of research creates a need for both generic and specific theoretical perspectives and research approaches to better understand this phenomenon. To address this need, we consider issues relevant to advancing a framework for women’s entrepreneurship research. However, it is not our intention to establish some reduced parameters for the study of women’s entrepreneurship; rather, we concur with Gartner that “. . . entrepreneurship research espouses a diverse range of theories applied to various kinds of phenomena. . . . There is no elephant in entrepreneurship. The various topics in the entrepreneurship field do not constitute a congruous whole” (Gartner, 2001, p. 34). As such, we take into consideration the need to bridge the practice of entrepreneurship with this body of theory as it applies to the large and growing population of women entrepreneurs, and for policy makers to be aware of research results that have implications for fostering women’s entrepreneurship. This second volume of the special issue on women’s entrepreneurship marks the end of our guest editorial responsibilities for Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. However, we are not able to easily let go of our thinking, and consistent with the theme, we wish to consider the dialogue. And so, before introducing the articles for this volume on women’s entrepreneurship, it made sense for us to analyze current and future themes in women’s entrepreneurship, then to outline some methodological concerns we observed in our discussions during the review process for this two-volume special issue on women’s entrepreneurship. This analysis has led us to consider whether we need a separate theory on women’s entrepreneurship. This expanded introduction offers an overview of elements for a proposed framework that we hope will inspire more dialogue and research on women’s entrepreneurship.

Advancing a Framework for Coherent Research on Women's Entrepreneurship:

Female and male entrepreneurs differ in the way they finance their businesses. This difference can be attributed to the type of business and the type of management and experience of the entrepreneur (indirect effect). Female start-ups may also experience specific barriers when trying to acquire start-up capital. These may be based upon discriminatory effects (direct effect). Whether gender has an impact on size and composition of start-up capital and in what way, is the subject of the present paper. The indirect effect is represented by the way women differ from men in terms of type of business and management and experience. The direct effect cannot be attributed to these differences and is called the gender effect. We use of a panel of 2000 Dutch starting entrepreneurs, of whom approximately 500 are female to test for these direct and indirect effects. The panel refers to the year 1994. We find that female entrepreneurs have a smaller amount of start-up capital, but that they do not differ significantly with respect to the type of capital. On average the proportion of equity and debt capital (bank loans) in the businesses of female entrepreneurs is the same as in those of their male counterparts.

Start-Up Capital: "Does Gender Matter?"

Using confidential microdata from the U.S. Census Bureau, we investigate the performance of female-owned businesses making comparisons to male-owned businesses. Using regression estimates and a decomposition technique, we explore the role that human capital, especially through prior work experience, and financial capital play in contributing to why female-owned businesses have lower survival rates, profits, employment and sales. We find that female-owned businesses are less successful than male-owned businesses because they have less startup capital, and business human capital acquired through prior work experience in a similar business and prior work experience in family business. We also find some evidence that female-owned businesses work fewer hours and may have different preferences for the goals of their business.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm?abstractid=1278918

Gender Differences in Business Performance: Evidence from the Characteristics of Business Owners Survey

The performance of small businesses, that is the ability of small firms to contribute to job and wealth creation through business start-up, survival and growth, has been an important area of policy and academic debate in the 1980s. Surprisingly little has been written about gender and small business performance. Our literature search revealed only a small number of studies of any substance on this subject, though over forty made some mention of it, Most studies shied away from direct examination of quantitative performance measures (such as jobs created, sales turnover, annual growth), tending to concentrate on qualitative measures of success or failure. The paper examines small business performance and gender using data obtained from a survey of 600 (300 women, 300 men) Scottish and English small business ownermanagers, part of a three year study on the impact of gender on small business management. Analyses suggest that the relationship between gender and small business performance is complex, but that gender still appears to be a significant determinant even after other key factors are controlled for.

Gender as a determinant of small business performance: insights from a British study

Dr Peter Rosa, Lecture with the scottish enterprise fondations, stirling unviersity and sara carter, sernior research fellow with the deprtment of Marketing, stratchclyde univerisity. Glasgow, Scot...

The Impact of Gender on Small Business Management: Preliminary Findings of a British Study

The emphasis on the individual “female entrepreneur” in much of the small business literature in the last decade disguises the fact that many women in business ownership are in partnership with oth...

Gender and Ownership in UK Small Firms

Studies of gender and small business performance have tended to avoid quantitative performance measures, such as sales turnover and annual growth. This study examines the determinants of gender on quantitative small business performance, based on interviews with 600 Scottish and English small business owner-managers, divided equally by sex. Subjects were asked to provide (on basis of recall) answers to relatively simple performance indicators, such as numbers employed, sales turnover, capital assets, and perception of profitability. Analysis first confirmed that there are marked differences by sex in entrepreneurial performance, desire to grow, and type of preferred growth strategy. Sector, business age, and co-ownership are complicating methodological factors. The most important predictors of performance were sector, number of owners, initial capital at startup, and whether finance was refused. Age of firm and age of respondent were important in some cases. Overall, gender is a significant determinant of performance as measured by sales turnover and number of full-time employees; it is not, however, a primary determinant compared with other factors. Industry sector and other contextual variables may be as important as the differing motivations of the genders found in other studies. Female businesses under-perform in number of employees, Value Added Tax registration, sales turnover, capital assets, and range of markets. Females are less likely to own multiple businesses and less eager to plan expansion; they have lower assets than male-owned firms. The lack of consistent differences across sectors means, however, that most variation in economic quantitative measures is due to a blend of factors, not just gender forces. (TNM)

Daphne Hamilton

Papers

Gender as a determinant of small business performance: insights from a British study

The Impact of Gender on Small Business Management: Preliminary Findings of a British Study

Gender and Ownership in UK Small Firms

Gender as a Determinant of Small Business Performance: Insights from a British Study