IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/sbusec/v52y2019i1d10.1007_s11187-018-0027-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Where is my partner? The role of gender in the formation of entrepreneurial businesses

Author

Listed:
  • Yisook Lim

    (Cornell University)

  • Chan S. Suh

    (Chung-Ang University)

Abstract

This study examines the ownership structure of nascent businesses with a particular focus on the role of gender. Based on theories of gender and entrepreneurship, we examine how male and female entrepreneurs differentially mobilize their preexisting social and cultural capital to launch new businesses. With their limited social and cultural capital, we expect that female entrepreneurs are more likely to establish either a solo or a family-only enterprise rather than a non-family business in comparison to male counterparts. Moreover, we explore the possibility that female-led solo or family businesses tend to show lower performance compared to the male counterpart. Using a nationally representative data of nascent entrepreneurs in the USA, the results suggest that female entrepreneurs are more likely to found enterprises alone or with family members than their male counterparts especially when they lack social or cultural capital. In addition, our findings show that solo or family businesses run by female entrepreneurs tend to display lower initial performance compared to males. The results have important implications for broadening our understanding of the role of gender in the formation of entrepreneurial businesses.

Suggested Citation

  • Yisook Lim & Chan S. Suh, 2019. "Where is my partner? The role of gender in the formation of entrepreneurial businesses," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 131-151, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:52:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s11187-018-0027-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s11187-018-0027-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11187-018-0027-3
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11187-018-0027-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Niels Bosma & Mirjam van Praag & Roy Thurik & Gerrit de Wit, 2004. "The Value of Human and Social Capital Investments for the Business Performance of Startups," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 227-236, October.
    2. Sara Carter & Eleanor Shaw & Wing Lam & Fiona Wilson, 2007. "Gender, Entrepreneurship, and Bank Lending: The Criteria and Processes Used by Bank Loan Officers in Assessing Applications," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 31(3), pages 427-444, May.
    3. Friederike Welter & David Smallbone, 2006. "Exploring the Role of Trust in Entrepreneurial Activity," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 30(4), pages 465-475, July.
    4. Robert Fairlie & Alicia Robb, 2009. "Gender differences in business performance: evidence from the Characteristics of Business Owners survey," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 375-395, December.
    5. Arent Greve & Janet W. Salaff, 2003. "Social Networks and Entrepreneurship," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 28(1), pages 1-22, January.
    6. Patricia G. Greene & Candida G. Brush & Myra M. Hart & Patrick Saparito, 2001. "Patterns of venture capital funding: Is gender a factor?," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 63-83, January.
    7. Powell, Gary N. & Eddleston, Kimberly A., 2013. "Linking family-to-business enrichment and support to entrepreneurial success: Do female and male entrepreneurs experience different outcomes?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 261-280.
    8. Shanthi Gopalakrishnan & Joanne L. Scillitoe & Michael D. Santoro, 2008. "Tapping Deep Pockets: The Role of Resources and Social Capital on Financial Capital Acquisition by Biotechnology Firms in Biotech–Pharma Alliances," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(8), pages 1354-1376, December.
    9. Randerson, Kathleen & Bettinelli, Cristina & Fayolle, Alain & Anderson, Alistair, 2015. "Family entrepreneurship as a field of research: Exploring its contours and contents," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 143-154.
    10. Davidsson, Per & Honig, Benson, 2003. "The role of social and human capital among nascent entrepreneurs," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 301-331, May.
    11. Vishal K. Gupta & Daniel B. Turban & S. Arzu Wasti & Arijit Sikdar, 2009. "The Role of Gender Stereotypes in Perceptions of Entrepreneurs and Intentions to Become an Entrepreneur," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 33(2), pages 397-417, March.
    12. Cromie, Stan & Birley, Sue, 1992. "Networking by female business owners in Northern Ireland," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 237-251, May.
    13. Lerner, Miri & Brush, Candida & Hisrich, Robert, 1997. "Israeli women entrepreneurs: An examination of factors affecting performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 315-339, July.
    14. Barbara Bird & Candida Brush, 2002. "A Gendered Perspective on Organizational Creation," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 26(3), pages 41-65, April.
    15. Susan Coleman & Alicia Robb, 2009. "A comparison of new firm financing by gender: evidence from the Kauffman Firm Survey data," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 397-411, December.
    16. Aldrich, Howard E. & Cliff, Jennifer E., 2003. "The pervasive effects of family on entrepreneurship: toward a family embeddedness perspective," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 573-596, September.
    17. Vishal K. Gupta & Daniel B. Turban & Ashish Pareek, 2013. "Differences between Men and Women in Opportunity Evaluation as a Function of Gender Stereotypes and Stereotype Activation," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 37(4), pages 771-788, July.
    18. Paul D. Reynolds & Nancy M. Carter & William B. Gartner & Patricia G. Greene, 2004. "The Prevalence of Nascent Entrepreneurs in the United States: Evidence from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 263-284, November.
    19. Fischer, Eileen M. & Reuber, A. Rebecca & Dyke, Lorraine S., 1993. "A theoretical overview and extension of research on sex, gender, and entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 151-168, March.
    20. G. Page West III, 2007. "Collective Cognition: When Entrepreneurial Teams, Not Individuals, Make Decisions," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 31(1), pages 77-102, January.
    21. David L. Brannon & Johan Wiklund & J. Michael Haynie, 2013. "The Varying Effects of Family Relationships in Entrepreneurial Teams," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 37(1), pages 107-132, January.
    22. Ray Reagans & Ezra W. Zuckerman, 2001. "Networks, Diversity, and Productivity: The Social Capital of Corporate R&D Teams," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(4), pages 502-517, August.
    23. BodenJR., Richard J. & Nucci, Alfred R., 2000. "On the survival prospects of men's and women's new business ventures," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 347-362, July.
    24. Martin Ruef, 2010. "The Entrepreneurial Group: Social Identities, Relations, and Collective Action," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9214.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Emma Galli & Danilo V. Mascia & Stefania P. S. Rossi, 2020. "Bank credit constraints for women‐led SMEs: Self‐restraint or lender bias?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 26(4), pages 1147-1188, September.
    2. Marc Cowling & Susan Marlow & Weixi Liu, 2020. "Gender and bank lending after the global financial crisis: are women entrepreneurs safer bets?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 853-880, December.
    3. Stjepan Srhoj & Bruno Škrinjarić & Sonja Radas & Janette Walde, 2022. "Small matching grants for women entrepreneurs: lessons from the past recession," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 117-142, June.
    4. Marc Cowling & Susan Marlow & Weixi Liu, 0. "Gender and bank lending after the global financial crisis: are women entrepreneurs safer bets?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-28.
    5. Oluwasheyi Oladipo & Katarzyna Platt & Hyoung Suk Shim, 2023. "Female entrepreneurs managing from home," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 447-464, August.
    6. Susana C. Santos & Xaver Neumeyer, 2022. "Culture and gender in entrepreneurial teams: the effect on team processes and outcomes," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 1035-1050, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Justo, Rachida & DeTienne, Dawn R. & Sieger, Philipp, 2015. "Failure or voluntary exit? Reassessing the female underperformance hypothesis," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 775-792.
    2. Sara Poggesi & Michela Mari & Luisa Vita, 2016. "What’s new in female entrepreneurship research? Answers from the literature," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 735-764, September.
    3. Avnimelech, Gil & Rechter, Eyal, 2023. "How and why accelerators enhance female entrepreneurship," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(2).
    4. Daniela Giménez & Andrea Calabrò, 2018. "The salient role of institutions in Women’s entrepreneurship: a critical review and agenda for future research," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 857-882, December.
    5. John R. Becker–Blease & Jeffrey E. Sohl, 2011. "The Effect of Gender Diversity on Angel Group Investment," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 35(4), pages 709-733, July.
    6. Elitzur, Ramy & Solodoha, Eliran, 2021. "Does gender matter? Evidence from crowdfunding," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 16(C).
    7. Kimberly A. Eddleston & Jamie J. Ladge & Cheryl Mitteness & Lakshmi Balachandra, 2016. "Do you See what I See? Signaling Effects of Gender and Firm Characteristics on Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 40(3), pages 489-514, May.
    8. Xuemei Xie & Jiuchang Lv, 2016. "Social networks of female tech-entrepreneurs and new venture performance: the moderating effects of entrepreneurial alertness and gender discrimination," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 963-983, December.
    9. Ladge, Jamie & Eddleston, Kimberly A. & Sugiyama, Keimei, 2019. "Am I an entrepreneur? How imposter fears hinder women entrepreneurs’ business growth," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 62(5), pages 615-624.
    10. Jiang, Yiqi & Jiang, Zhou & Chen, Zhijun, 2024. "Women entrepreneurship in China: A bibliometric literature review and future research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    11. Randerson, Kathleen & Bettinelli, Cristina & Fayolle, Alain & Anderson, Alistair, 2015. "Family entrepreneurship as a field of research: Exploring its contours and contents," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 143-154.
    12. Gina Santos & Carla Susana Marques & João J. Ferreira, 2018. "A look back over the past 40 years of female entrepreneurship: mapping knowledge networks," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(2), pages 953-987, May.
    13. Yang, Shu & Kher, Romi & Newbert, Scott L., 2020. "What signals matter for social startups? It depends: The influence of gender role congruity on social impact accelerator selection decisions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 35(2).
    14. Marcus T. Wolfe & Pankaj C. Patel, 2016. "Grit and self-employment: a multi-country study," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 853-874, December.
    15. Strohmeyer, Robert & Tonoyan, Vartuhi & Jennings, Jennifer E., 2017. "Jacks-(and Jills)-of-all-trades: On whether, how and why gender influences firm innovativeness," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 498-518.
    16. Helene Ahl, 2006. "Why Research on Women Entrepreneurs Needs New Directions," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 30(5), pages 595-621, September.
    17. Fatma El-Hamidi, 2011. "How Do Women Entrepreneurs Perform? Empirical Evidence from Egypt," Working Papers 621, Economic Research Forum, revised 09 Jan 2011.
    18. Bryan T. Stinchfield & Reed E. Nelson & Matthew S. Wood, 2013. "Learning from Levi–Strauss’ Legacy: Art, Craft, Engineering, Bricolage, and Brokerage in Entrepreneurship," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 37(4), pages 889-921, July.
    19. Hedberg, Patricia R. & Danes, Sharon M., 2012. "Explorations of dynamic power processes within copreneurial couples," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 228-238.
    20. Tatiana Tsyganova & Galina Shirokova, 2010. "Gender Differences In Entrepreneurship: Evidence From Gem Data," Organizations and Markets in Emerging Economies, Faculty of Economics, Vilnius University, vol. 1(1).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender; Family; Female entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurial team;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:52:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s11187-018-0027-3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.