Who’s the Boss? Explaining Gender Inequality in Entrepreneurial Teams

Abstract

Sociologists have examined gender inequalities across a wide array of social contexts. Yet, questions remain regarding how inequalities arise among autonomous groups pursuing economic goals. In this article, we investigate mixed-sex entrepreneurial teams to unpack the mechanisms by which gender inequality in leadership emerges, despite strong pressures toward merit-based organizing principles. We theorize the potentially competing relationships between merit and gender and explore the contingencies moderating their effects. Drawing on a unique, nationally representative dataset of entrepreneurial teams sampled from the U.S. population in 2005, we use conditional logistic regression to test our hypotheses. We demonstrate that merit’s effect becomes much larger when multiple merit-based criteria provide consistent predictions for which team member is superior to others, and when entrepreneurial founders adopt bureaucratic templates to construct new ventures. However, gender stereotypes of leaders pervasively constrain women’s access to power positions, and gender’s effect intensifies when spousal relationships are involved. Women have reduced chances to be in charge if they co-found new businesses with their husbands, and some family conditions further modify women’s chances, such as husbands’ employment and the presence of children.

Annual review article: Is it time to rethink the gender agenda in entrepreneurship research?

“…Such resource flows are intrinsically gendered; evidence suggests that women contribute substantive time and labour to spousal firms, even when in full time employment (Hamilton, 2006) reflecting an expectation of feminised support for male economic activity. This is less likely to be reciprocated for women business owners by male partners (Yang and Aldrich, 2014). Jayawarna et al (2017), however, argue that given typically higher levels of employment income for men, male partners may transfer greater amounts of financial capital into their female partner's venture.…”

“…Examining the motivations, activities, and accomplishments of female entrepreneurs, absented from the relations within which they 'do' and enact gender (Bruni et al, 2004;West and Zimmerman, 1987), will unduly limit the scope of any analysis. Evidence quite clearly indicates that most entrepreneurial activity occurs within families and households (Carter et al, 2017;Klotz, 2014); team led ventures are common (Wright and Vanaelst, 2009) whilst even sole proprietors cannot create and operate ventures in a vacuum (Yang and Aldrich, 2014). Thus, how gendered ascriptions shape the availability, accrual and flow of entrepreneurial ideas, resources and competencies between those involved with, or operating, a venture is pivotal whether at the level of the family, household, team or stakeholder group.…”

Do Women Suffer from Network Closure? The Moderating Effect of Social Capital on Gender Inequality in a Project-Based Labor Market, 1929 to 2010

“…Men are therefore more effective in creating career-relevant, "hard" social capital (van Emmerik 2006). For instance, they are more likely to take up leadership positions within informally occurring, close entrepreneurial groups (Yang and Aldrich 2014).…”

Entrepreneurial Teams, Gender, and New Venture Survival: Contexts and Institutions

“…Disparity as a diversity construct is rare in empirical research on entrepreneurial teams as well as in theoretical interpretations of outcomes. However, there are exceptions (Hellerstedt, 2009;Yang & Aldrich, 2014;Yang & del Carmen Triana, 2017); for instance, Hellerstedt (2009) found that disparity (vertical diversity) in terms of differences in status was a promising theoretical perspective as it could explain much of her findings related to new venture team dynamics. Yang and Aldrich (2014) also found vertical diversity in terms of differences in gender stereotypes as a strong mechanism for explaining gender inequalities and the constraining of women's access to power positions in the entrepreneurial team.…”

“…However, there are exceptions (Hellerstedt, 2009;Yang & Aldrich, 2014;Yang & del Carmen Triana, 2017); for instance, Hellerstedt (2009) found that disparity (vertical diversity) in terms of differences in status was a promising theoretical perspective as it could explain much of her findings related to new venture team dynamics. Yang and Aldrich (2014) also found vertical diversity in terms of differences in gender stereotypes as a strong mechanism for explaining gender inequalities and the constraining of women's access to power positions in the entrepreneurial team. Zhou and Rosini (2015) argue that due to a limited number of studies and inconsistent results-and the use of different performance measurements-no conclusions can be drawn regarding the effect of entrepreneurial team diversity.…”