This study, based on Bem's (1974) gender schema theory, investigates gender differences in and the relationship between gender role characteristics and entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) of 261 ...female and 265 male entrepreneurs in China. The results show that male and female entrepreneurs did not differ significantly in ESE or in masculine gender role characteristics, but differed significantly in feminine gender role characteristics. Examining four different stages in the entrepreneurial life cycle, we find that for female entrepreneurs, feminine characteristics had a positive influence on ESE in the searching and planning stages of entrepreneurship, and masculine characteristics had a positive influence on ESE in the searching stage. For male entrepreneurs, feminine characteristics had a positive influence on ESE in the searching and planning stages, and masculine characteristics had a positive influence on ESE in the marshaling and implementing stages. In addition, one feminine characteristic, "Friendly," showed a positive association with male entrepreneurs' ESE in the marshaling stage. Overall, the feminine gender role factor of "Friendly" and the masculine gender role factor of "Compete" played a greater role on ESE than other characteristics. Implications of the findings are discussed. This study contributes a new perspective to extant research on entrepreneurial self-efficacy and female entrepreneurship.
This article explores how heteronormativity shapes the (re)construction of gay male entrepreneurial identities. Drawing on in-depth interview data and utilising conceptual resources from queer ...theory, this article traces the effects of heteronormative entrepreneurial discourses, evident in the types of gay male sexualities discursively mobilised by study participants to (re)construct normal gay male entrepreneurial identities. Study data reveal the regulatory and normalising impact of heteronormativity along three discursive themes: entrepreneurial gay masculine identities; the entrepreneurial (gay) ‘family type guy’; and repudiating the feminine in women and other gay men. This article contributes to the limited LGBT entrepreneurship literature, in particular, the scholarship on heteronormativity and entrepreneurial identities, showing how heteronormativity retrenches both the heterosexual/homosexual binary and the male norm at the core of dominant entrepreneurial discourses.
Barriers faced by women entrepreneurs are different from the barriers faced by male entrepreneurs. These barriers differ based on age, culture, geographical region, education, marital status and ...ethnicity. This paper investigates barriers faced by women entrepreneurs and the moderating effect of culture on the relationship between barriers faced by women entrepreneurs and women entrepreneur’s success in micro, small and medium enterprises. The five main research findings from this study are (1) gender inequality is a major barrier to women’s success in micro, small and medium enterprises, (2) national culture is positively related to barriers faced by women entrepreneurs, (3) barriers faced by women entrepreneur’s is negatively related to women entrepreneurs’ success in micro, small and medium enterprises, (4) national culture is negatively related to women entrepreneurs success in micro, small and medium enterprises and (5) culture moderates the relationship between gender inequality and women’s success in micro, small and medium enterprises.
This paper attempts a close reading of the life narratives of two select male Gujarati entrepreneurs - Nanji Kalidas Mehta and Muljibhai Madhvani. Their biographies offer a detailed account of ...voyages made by them to East Africa, their spirit of exploration and enterprise, and the formidable business empires that they painstakingly built in present-day Uganda. While the narratives offer a laudatory account of the commercial acumen of these business magnates of Indian origin, the life stories and the role of women of their families remain marginalised and untold. This paper argues that by limiting the description of the lived experiences of women to the confines of their domestic spaces, the two narratives under study fail to acknowledge the possible contribution of the Indian emigrant women, either direct or indirect, to the project of entrepreneurial expansion of the community of East African Asian traders, and thereby restricts the experiences of women in the East African Asian diaspora to the domestic realm alone.