Now you see them, now you don't: gender differences in entrepreneurship

Viewing entrepreneurship through a goal congruity lens: The roles of dominance and communal goal orientations in women's and men's venture interests

The objective of this research was to examine gender differences in entrepreneurial venture interests drawing on goal congruity theory, which posits that people adopt gender-stereotypic goal orientations in response to social pressures to conform to traditional gender roles. Aspiring entrepreneurs (N = 351) first wrote about what they believed made an entrepreneur successful. They then completed measures of agentic and communal goal orientations (i.e., male and female stereotypic orientations, respectively) and indicated their interests in starting ventures in stereotypically feminine (e.g., salon), masculine (e.g., auto-repair) and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM; e.g., software developer) ventures. Analysis of open-ended responses demonstrated that participants ascribed more agentic and, specifically, more dominance attributes to entrepreneurs than communal attributes (e.g., warmth). Bifactor structural equation modeling indicated that, as expected, agentic goal orientations included dimensions of competence, self-direction, and dominance orientations; communal goal orientations were unidimensional. Further, as expected, dominance and communal orientations partially accounted for gender differences in all three career types. We discuss implications for entrepreneurial education and practice from a goal congruity perspective and the use of bifactor modeling to improve the measurement of goal orientations.

The role of spiritual mindset and gender in small business entrepreneurial success

Introduction

Spirituality can be understood as a capital based on individual capabilities created by the application of intrinsic spiritual values, in order to use and develop human potential. The literature points out that spiritual capital increasingly influences and motivates entrepreneurs.

Methods

In this paper, we investigate whether spirituality has a mediating role between psychological resilience, optimism and entrepreneurial success, and verify the gender differences. Our hypotheses are quantitatively tested on a sample of 233 micro and small Portuguese business owners during the pandemic crisis.

Results

The main findings highlight that, while optimism and psychological resilience present a positive and significant relationship with entrepreneurial success in both genders, spirituality only impacts female entrepreneurial success.

Discussion

Our study theoretically and empirically shows that the psychological resources and spirituality can be incorporated into new or existing programs designed to provide entrepreneurs with information on coping skills and how to engage in positive reorientation and reappraisal. In so doing, it improves the knowledge of the importance of psychological resources for the micro and small business' recoverability during the pandemic, which is deeply rooted in the entrepreneurial ability to excel during adversity.

Keep the fire burning: Social entrepreneurs’ motives, role stress, perceived work competence and passion

This study examines factors affecting social entrepreneurs’ passion, focusing on their motives, job stress, and perceived work competence. The analysis of the survey data of 264 self-identified social entrepreneurs working in different types of organizations reveals that other-oriented motives are strongly associated with passion while self-oriented motives are not. The results also show that job stress is negatively correlated with social entrepreneurs’ passion. When the perceived work competence is included as a mediator, however, it alters the nature of the job stress-passion relationship, suggesting that job stress can positively affect social entrepreneurs’ passion when they perceive a high level of competence. The findings also suggest that perceived work competence reinforces the positive relationship between other-oriented motives and passion. This paper concludes with practical implications for social entrepreneurship education.

Not Like My Parents! The Intention to Become a Successor of Latin American Students with Entrepreneur Parents

The article presents an extension of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to identify, in a Latin American university, the students who are children of entrepreneurial parents and the determinants of their willingness to succeed them. The TPB is used as a basis to analyse the intention to be a successor, and three constructs are added: affective commitment, normative commitment and parental role model. The analysis is carried out using structural equations via the partial least squares (PLS) method, which allows for the study of multiple relationships between construct-type variables. The sample includes 16,185 Latin American university students from the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey 2018 database. The results show that, in Latin American students, the determining factors in the intention to be a successor are attitude, the affective and normative commitment and the parental role model. The latter has a negative and significant effect on the intention to be a successor in the family business. One of the practical implications of this study has to do with the development of an affective feeling of the offspring towards the family business. Generating this kind of attachment since childhood could lead to achieving a greater relevance of the parental role model and a stronger interest in the succession of the business.

Determinants of Social Entrepreneurs in Southeast Europe: GEM Data Analysis

With this paper, we aim to examine the relationship between cognitive, social, and demographical factors, as well as national culture and its relationship with social entrepreneurial activity in Southeast Europe (SEE). The empirical research employs a binary logistic regression model, utilizing data obtained from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. For the purpose of the empirical research, we selected a sample of early-stage entrepreneurs who founded their businesses in Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, or North Macedonia. The research sample in these five countries includes 10,012 examinees, of which 615 are social entrepreneurs. A statistically significant relationship was identified between observed phenomena in terms of entrepreneurial networking, risk aversion, individualism, entrepreneurial social image, media impact, gender, work status, and education. The results can be explained by the specific entrepreneurial context of the SEE region. We also point out recommendations for future research.

Social entrepreneurs narrating their careers: A psychodynamic-existential perspective

This study aims to improve our understanding of social entrepreneurs’ careers through narrative analysis of their life stories. Narratives are an important part of the study of career-related transitions, as they form, revise, and reconstruct identities, and drive agency. For this purpose, 24 in-depth semi-structured narrative interviews were conducted with Israeli social entrepreneurs. The findings point out a process which takes place in different spheres and moulds the life story of a social entrepreneur: the personality sphere; the family sphere, including family dynamics and significant childhood experiences; the social sphere, including formative events outside the family; and the moral sphere, which includes attitudes and ideologies. The entirety of spheres generates a consistent meta-narrative which promotes a theoretical integration between psychoanalytical and existential psychological theories and offers a deeper understanding of how and why people become social entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurial cognitions in academia: exploring gender differences

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to draw from an adapted model of the Theory of Planned Behaviour and from existing models of entrepreneurial intention (EI) to analyse the role of gender on academics’ perceptions concerning the commercialisation of their research results. In particular, the authors explore differences in perceptions arising from diverse cognitions, such as attitudes towards entrepreneurial activities, the influence of close social groups and opportunity recognition self-efficacy.

Design/methodology/approach

– A questionnaire was addressed to 500 Spanish academics who have headed research projects with public funding in technology-related areas, and the results were subjected to multigroup structural equation analysis (LISREL) to determine the extent and nature of the differences within this group.

Findings

– The results obtained show that the influence of close social groups is perceived differently by men and women, particularly as regards the support received for academics’ attitudes and perceptions of control over the development of EI.

Practical implications

– The aim is to better understand the world facing academics and the influences on their intention to commercialise research outcomes. An understanding of these issues offers the opportunity to design appropriate government interventions to assist academic entrepreneurs undertaking a business venture.

Originality/value

– This paper considers an under-researched area that of female entrepreneurship in academia, traditionally considered a male-dominated activity. Helpful information is provided on gender differences in the academic context.

The Glass Ceiling and Executive Careers

With respect to how the enduring challenge of the glass ceiling might be resolved, one position holds that parity in the executive ranks will be achieved, given enough women entering the managerial pipeline. However, there is scant evidence that such a pipeline exists, and pre-career women’s attitudes toward executive work remain to be better understood. Guided by theories of social role and stereotype threat, and research on work–life balance and culture, the study uses thematic discourse analysis to explore executive attitudes in an ethnically diverse sample of 69 Canadian undergraduate women in business. We find that they perceive the glass ceiling in stereotype threatening ways, blame their personal limitations and work–family choices for its existence, and sense a range of obstacles to their advancement. Although some expressed a desire for work–family balance, participants predominantly restricted career choices to favor one over the other. Implications, recommendations, and limitations are also discussed.

Job Burnout and Couple Burnout in Dual-earner Couples in the Sandwiched Generation

We use existential theory as a framework to explore the levels of and relationship between job and couple burnout reported by dual-earner couples in the “sandwich generation” (i.e., couples caring both for children and aging parents) in a sample of such couples in Israel and the United States. This comparison enables an examination of the influence of culture (which is rarely addressed in burnout research) and gender (a topic fraught with conflicting results) on both job and couple burnout in this growing yet understudied group of workers who are reaching middle age and starting to face existential issues as part of their own life cycle. Results revealed significant differences in burnout type (job burnout higher than couple burnout); gender (wives more burned out than husbands); and country (Americans more burned out than Israelis). Job related stressors and rewards as well as parent care stressors predicted job burnout, and marital stressors and rewards predicted couple burnout. In addition, there was evidence for both crossover and spillover.

Gender and culture in family business: A ten-nation study

The current study focused on the role played by culture and gender differences in family business: to what extent are family businesses different across cultures, to what extent are family businesses owned by women different from family businesses owned by men and is there a culture by gender interaction? These questions were examined using data collected as part of the adult population surveys of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) in 10 countries including four Anglo-Saxon countries (US, UK, Australia, New Zealand), three European countries (Spain, Sweden, Hungary), one Latin American country (Brazil), one East Asian country (Singapore) and one Mediterranean country (Israel). Results showed consistently big cross-cultural differences between the owners of family businesses in the ten countries and far smaller and less consistent differences between male and female owners of family businesses. These findings offer a strong support for social theories of gender and a much weaker support for evolutionary theory.