Female Entrepreneurship: Can Cooperatives Contribute to Overcoming the Gender Gap? A Spanish First Step to Equality

Abstract

To date, entrepreneurship research has rarely focused on cooperatives. Recent research has suggested there is a positive association between cooperatives and women's entrepreneurial activity based on the assumption that this model is especially suitable for women's expectations and is favourable to their economic entrepreneurial development. However, few studies have empirically tested these propositions. This research, which analysed data from 264 Spanish cooperatives, confirms these findings. A mixed-methods approach was used. In the first stage, a Delphi study was run with 11 cooperative entrepreneurship experts to ask what factors may be decisive for women preferring a cooperative model. In the second stage, the factors derived from the Delphi study were used in a survey targeting female cooperative associates. The findings confirmed that female cooperative owners perceived this business model to be aligned with their values and best fit their work and lifestyle. This research contributes to the existing social entrepreneurship literature by providing empirical evidence from the Spanish context that highlights the role of women in cooperatives. The findings also emphasize the need for responsive policies and programmes that promote the cooperative model since it promotes female employment and women's entrepreneurial activity even in periods of economic austerity.Sustainability 2020, 12, 2478 2 of 17 women and men in terms of their levels of participation, access, rights, remuneration, or benefits (European Institute for Gender Equality, EIGE) [8][9][10]. In this vein, Dalkiran [11] recently highlighted the benefits women receive from the membership of cooperative organizations and concluded that female entrepreneurship through cooperatives can facilitate progress in meeting regional and national development targets. Dalkiran's contribution [11] should be considered a first step in a relatively young academic field-women's social entrepreneurship-which has been primarily based on case studies (see, for example, [12,13]). While his study targeted Turkish cooperatives, Dalkiran [11] argued that similar findings might be attained in other cultural settings. As shown, cooperatives can favour women's entrepreneurship as they are owned and self-managed by their workers. Furthermore, cooperatives might be welcoming organizations for women, as well as drivers of equality. If these organizations can act as a fast track for women to become entrepreneurs, they can be a springboard to female empowerment and economic development.Despite the growing popularity of cooperatives and their superior resistance to economic downturns [2,[14][15][16][17], entrepreneurial studies drawing on this business model remain scarce, and Carrasco [18] (p.62) urges future researchers "to better understand the contribution of cooperatives to enable the transformative change required for advancements on gender equality". This study addresses this research gap by examining the main factors that influence women's entrepreneurship by using coope...

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