Introduction
Women entrepreneurship: chronological history of the field
Review method
Year | Study type | Reference |
---|---|---|
1976 | First Journal article | Schwartz, E. (1976). Entrepreneurship: A new female frontier. Journal of Contemporary Business, 5, 47–76. |
1979 | First Policy report | The bottom line: Unequal enterprise in America. (1979). Report of the President’s Inter- agency Task Force on Women Business Owners. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. |
1983 | First Conference paper presentation | Hisrich, R.D., & Brush, C.G. (1983). The woman entrepreneur: implications of family, education, and occupation. In J.A. Hornaday, J.A. Timmons, & K.H. Vesper (Eds.), Frontiers of entrepreneurship research—Proceedings of the Babson College Conference on Entrepreneurship (pp. 255–270) Wellesley, MA: Babson College. |
1985 | First Academic book | Goffee, R., & Scase, R. (1985). Women in charge: The experiences of female entrepreneurs. London: George Allen and Unwin. |
1998 | First Policy oriented Conference on Women entrepreneurship | Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Conference on women entrepreneurs (http://www.oecd.org/cfe/smes/womenentrepreneurskeymessages.htm) |
2003 | First academic Conference on Women entrepreneurship | Diana International Conference on Women’s Entrepreneurship Research (http://www.babson.edu/Academics/centers/blank-center/global-research/diana/Pages/home.aspx) |
2006 | GEM Report on Women and Entrepreneurship | Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s (GEM) special topic report on women and entrepreneurship |
2009 | First dedicated Journal | International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship |
Journal Name | First article published in Year | Total papers (1900–2016) | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Economics of Innovation and New Technology | - | 0 |
2 | Entrepreneurship & Regional Development | 1998 | 11 |
3 | Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practicea
| 1991 | 34 |
4 | Industry and Innovation | 2010 | 1 |
5 | International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research | - | 0 |
6 | International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation | 2007 | 5 |
7 | International Review of Entrepreneurship | 2015 | 1 |
8 | International Small Business Journal | 1998 | 18 |
9 | Journal of Business Venturinga
| 1988 | 26 |
10 | Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development | 2003 | 16 |
11 | Journal of Small Business Management | 1973 | 46 |
12 | Small Business Economics | 1996 | 27 |
Total Number of Papers | 185 |
Reviews
Sl. No. | Author (Year) | Journal | Key Findings | Theory |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Bowen and Hisrich (1986) | Academy of Management Review | First literature review paper on female entrepreneurs. Examined literature from an entrepreneurial career perspective and posit a career model containing determinants of women entrepreneurial behavior. | Career theory |
2 | Birley (1989) | Journal of Small Business Management | The major difference between female entrepreneurs and male entrepreneurs is in their market-entry choices. There is a need to examine subtle factors like cultural conditioning and experiences. | Proposed a new theory- supply of entrepreneurs are situationally and culturally bound |
3 | Moore (1990) | Journal of Business Ethics | Current studies are limited, fragmented and unrelated. There is a need to develop a statistical research base, typologies and models. Field in an initial stage of paradigm development and there is a need to build theories. | |
4 | Brush (1992) | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | Research over the decade has shown some similarities and some differences between male and female business owners. Similarities have been reported on demographic features, some psychological traits and business skillset. Differences have been reported on educational background, occupation, motivation to start a business and approach to business creation and growth. | Proposed an integrated perspective, rooted in psychological and sociological theories, to explain gender-based differences |
5 | Fischer et al. (1993) | Journal of Business Venturing | There are atheoretical speculations on the differences between male and female entrepreneurs. Found no strong evidence for women-owned firms being impeded by the female owners’ lack of education or experience. Further, access to apprenticeship in target industry for women entrepreneurs can be beneficial. | Liberal feminist theory and social feminist theory can help explain why men and women run their businesses in different yet equally effective ways |
6 | Baker et al. (1997) | Entrepreneurship and Regional Development | Report a paradox- even though women business ownership has grown substantially in the US, the leading press and academic journals have remained silent. Small but significant gender differences in social behavior and leadership studies can offer interesting insights on gendered differences in business ownership. | Social behavior theory |
7 | Mirchandani (1999) | Gender, Work and Organization | Research on women entrepreneurship can be advanced via reflections two concerns (i) construction of the ‘female entrepreneur’ category that lays greater emphasis on gender over other types of stratification; (ii) examine relationships between gender, occupation and organizational structure and their impact on female versus male entrepreneurs. | Feminist theory |
8 | Gundry et al. (2002) | Journal of Enterprising Culture | Suggests the need to study comparisons among sectors; examine impact of factors like industry, family, culture and goal orientation in women founded enterprises; and study women entrepreneurship in the context of developing countries. | |
9 | Ahl (2006) | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | Need to expand the research object and move from an individualist focus of examining the female entrepreneur to include more factors and studies, like contingency studies or comparative studies. There is also a need to make a shift in epistemological position from how gender is done to how social orders are gendered. | Feminist theories - Liberal Feminist theory, Social Feminist theory, Psychoanalytical Feminist theory, Radical Feminist theory, Social Constructionist and Post-structural Feminist theory |
10 | de Bruin et al. (2006) | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | Research on women entrepreneurship is still at an early childhood stage and there is a need to pursue research that is connected to theory. There is also a need to nurture professional academic communities in this area like the Diana International Project to advance the field. | |
11 | de Bruin et al. (2007) | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | Existing theoretical concepts need to be expanded to better explain the uniqueness of women entrepreneurship. Research on multiple levels involving multiple units of analysis is required to advance the field. | Propose use of Feminist theories to expand Entrepreneurial theories on Process, Opportunity Recognition, Opportunity Exploitation, Value Creation, Entrepreneurial Environment and Institutional theory |
12 | Brush et al. (2009) | International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship | Propose a gender-aware framework for a holistic understanding of women entrepreneurship. Founded on institutional theory, they build a framework around 3Ms (markets, money and management) and add two more variables (motherhood and meso/macro environment) to construct a 5 M framework. | Institutional theory. Propose Gender as a Social construct theory |
13 | Ahl and Nelson (2010) | International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship | Re-frame the perspective on gender (differing from biological sex) in entrepreneurship research. Use the word gender as a socially constructed phenomenon. Focus on understanding the distinguishing process of “doing entrepreneurship” in terms of “what women do” and “what men do”. | Use Institutional theory to examine Gender and Entrepreneurship |
14 | Sullivan and Meek (2012) | Journal of Managerial Psychology | Extend the research examining relationships between I/O psychology and entrepreneurship studies. Present the review as a process model of gender and entrepreneurship. | Expectancy theory, Regulatory Focus theory, Social Cognitive theory to study process model concepts (Entrepreneurial Opportunity recognition, Motivation, Resource Acquisition, Success /Performance) |
15 | Ahl and Marlow (2012) | Organization | There exists an occluded gender bias within the entrepreneurial discourse, which is contrary to the neo-liberal views on entrepreneurship. Gendered assumptions limit epistemological scope of research in this area and positions women entrepreneurs as either failed or reluctant subjects. There is a need for building a reflexive critical perspective. | Feminist theories |
16 | Hughes et al. (2012) | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice | Women entrepreneurship research is on the brink of adolescence. Need to be inclusive of diverse voices and apply a constructionist approaches to answer traditional and non-traditional questions. Research collaborations in the women entrepreneurship area are still restricted within national boundaries and future research needs building networks across transnational borders. | |
17 | Jennings and Brush (2013) | The Academy of Management Annals | A comprehensive review of the sub-field documenting in detail evolution of research work on women entrepreneurship over a period of 30 years. Use the lens of informed pluralism and report entrepreneurship is a gendered phenomenon, entrepreneurial activity is embedded in families, entrepreneurship can result from necessity as well as opportunity and entrepreneurs pursue goals beyond economic gains. | Feminist theory, Process theory, Motivation and goals |
18 | Goyal and Yadav (2014) | Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource Management | Review challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in developing countries. Developing countries have institutional voids and low levels of entrepreneurial education. Women struggle to gain access to finance, face socio-cultural biases and experience low self-esteem. There is a need to address these complex challenges in a comprehensive manner to assist research and policy on women entrepreneurs in developing nations. | |
19 | Henry et al. (2016) | International Small Business Journal | Review the literature published on gender and entrepreneurship over a period of 30-years in 18 journals. There are large-scale empirical studies that primarily focus on comparisons between male and female entrepreneurs and often less information is given on the industry sector or the sampling methods. There is paucity of feminist critique and future scholars need to engage with post-structural feminist approaches. There is a need to adopt innovative methods like in-depth qualitative approaches. | Post-structural feminist theory |