A Gender integrative conceptualization of entrepreneurship

Abstract

Guided by feminist perspectives, we critique existing approaches to the study of womenʼs entrepreneurship on epistemological grounds and suggest that the entrepreneurship field needs to recognize gendered assumptions in theorizing. Deploying a feminist framework, we suggest that understanding the “gender gap” in entrepreneurship requires focus on institutional and structural barriers women entrepreneurs face. Existing studies of women entrepreneurs often compare women with men without considering how gender and gender relations impact the very concepts and ideas of entrepreneurship. We propose, therefore, a conceptualization of entrepreneurship that illuminates gender bias and calls attention to the interrelated individual, institutional, and structural barriers in the entrepreneurial process that arrive out of societal and cultural gender norms. Through praxis or engaged practice, we redirect scholarship in the entrepreneurship field, while proposing ways that can promote gender equality in entrepreneurial activities. In all, our gender integrative conceptualization of entrepreneurship contributes to the entrepreneurship field by recognizing and addressing a more expansive realm of influential factors within the entrepreneurial ecosystem that have previously been researched separately.

Networking towards (in)equality: Women entrepreneurs in technology

“…While this is a broad question, one way to begin conversation on this issue is to focus on how we conceptualize gender in the context of technology entrepreneurship. As feminist scholars, we understand gender as an organizing principle for entrepreneurship activities and question the assignment of responsibilities associated with caregiving and the domestic sphere to women entrepreneurs when such a move obscures benefits male entrepreneurs derive from these gendered arrangements (Clark Muntean & Ozkazanc‐Pan, ). Without acknowledging the economic value and gendered separation of social provisioning in society (Acker, ; Power, ), there can be little change towards gender equality in technology entrepreneurship even if organizations aim to address ‘gender issues’.…”

“…Scholars using various different feminist and critical perspectives have made important contributions to the study of gender and entrepreneurship. These include poststructuralist interventions that voice the relevance of gender and gender relations to the entrepreneurial experience (Bourne & Calás, ; Calás, Smircich, & Bourne, ) and those that re‐conceptualize the very ontology of entrepreneurship (Ahl, , ; Ahl & Marlow, ; Calás, Smircich, & Bourne, ; Clark Muntean & Ozkazanc‐Pan, ; Mirchandani, ). Other critiques focus on entrepreneurial processes to consider the ways in which gendered identities are relevant for doing entrepreneurship (Bruni, Gherardi, & Poggio, , ; Essers & Benschop, ; Essers, Doorewaard, & Benschop, ; Lewis, , ) and address how women experience gendered behaviour expectations (Harrison, Leitch, & McAdam, ; Marlow & McAdam, , ).…”

The Gendering of Entrepreneurship on Reality Television

“…Instead, it was to raise awareness of how the media, and reality television in particular, plays a role in our culture in the communication, reflection, and reproduction of gender norms related to entrepreneurship. As stated in the introduction to this study, much of the emphasis on gender research in entrepreneurship has examined individual‐level differences, where women are evaluated on how they deviate from a male norm or “ideal,” while largely ignoring context and cultural factors (Muntean and Ozkazanc‐Pan ).…”

“…26–27), given its role in “generating and revealing common knowledge about socially‐shared beliefs, ideas, and values” (Coyne and Leeson , p. 2). Muntean and Ozkazanc‐Pan () emphasized that as long as the “societal gender norms promoted through popular culture and media go unchallenged by mainstream entrepreneurship scholars” (p. 5), the discipline itself is complicit in sustaining the gendered inequalities.…”

Feminist perspectives on social entrepreneurship: critique and new directions

“…Already, feminist scholars have examined underlying assumptions and methods guiding much of the research in entrepreneurship by attending to the ways in which gender is examined or silenced (Bruni, Gherardi, and Poggio, 2004b;Clark Muntean and Ozkazanc-Pan, 2015;Henry, Foss and Ahl, 2015). Feminist thought in these fields have informed the way gender is conceptualized and how problems related to gender are identified and remedied.…”