Gender and the commercialization of university science: academic founders of spinout companies

There is a great deal of interest in Europe and the USA on the commercialization of university science, particularly the creation of spinout companies from the science base. Despite considerable research on academic entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship in general, and the causes of under-representation of female scientists in academic institutions, there has been little research on the influence of gender on academic entrepreneurship.

The study researches female founders of UK university spinout companies using information from the Internet on company founders of spinout companies from 20 leading universities. The proportion of female founders at 12% is very low. The paper explores reasons for this low representation through follow-up postal interviews of the 21 female founders identified, and a male control sample. Under-representation of female academic staff in science research is the dominant but not the only factor to explain low entrepreneurial rates amongst female scientists.

Owing to the low number of women in senior research positions in many leading science departments, few women had the chances to lead a spinout. This is a critical factor as much impetus for commercialization was initially inspired by external interest rather than internal evaluation of a commercial opportunity. External interest tended to target senior academics, which proportionally are mostly male. A majority of the women surveyed tended to be part of entrepreneurial teams involving senior male colleagues.

As a whole both male and female science entrepreneurs displayed similar motivations to entrepreneurship, but collectively as scientists differed appreciably from non academic entrepreneurs. Women science entrepreneurs also faced some additional problems in areas such as the conflict between work and home life and networks.     

Embeddedness in context: understanding gender in a female entrepreneurship network

ABSTRACT

In this paper I argue that through a process of embeddedness in context, a female entrepreneurship network is able to challenge gender structures. I investigate how a female entrepreneurship network is constructed and how they reinforce and possibly challenge existing gender structures. From an ethnographic study, three processes in the female entrepreneurship network were identified: making proper entrepreneurs, building relationships and engaging in change. In the different processes the women involved in the network reinforced gender structures through compliance with a masculine discourse of entrepreneurship, but also challenged gender structures through questioning this discourse. Through becoming embedded in their local community, the women entrepreneurs were able to take charge of the development of the network and challenge gender structures as a result of questioning the masculine discourse of entrepreneurship. This implies an interplay between embeddedness and gender as two separate but dependent processes. Linking together gender and embeddedness elicits a new take on the way female entrepreneurship networks are constructed and how they could advance gender equality within entrepreneurship. Consequently, this paper emphasises a need for further examination of embeddedness within gender and entrepreneurship research.     

Female entrepreneurial leadership factors

This article presents the foundations, current structure and trend of academic research into leadership factors in female entrepreneurship to provide scholars in the field with an overview of the followed research directions and to explore whether the same traditional patterns are reproduced in gender studies on entrepreneurship and leadership. For this purpose, a bibliometric analysis of the Web of Science database from 2000 to 2020 was used. With a performance analysis of variables (e.g. authors, publications, journals and countries), and thanks to scientific mapping, the links among these variables were studied. The results show that the trend of publications increased from 2015, but with little influence and output. The most influential and productive countries are the USA and Spain. 35% of the journals are based in the USA and 25% in England. The most influential ones deal with entrepreneurship, business, management and leadership. Although the foundational base is influenced by the author Ahl, known for calling for new research directions related to women entrepreneurs from a social construction perspective, the most influential articles continue to investigate gender with a dominant male bias. The network analysis reveals cooperation between different countries and authors with the USA dominating. The ambiguity of entrepreneurial leadership field due to the overlap of entrepreneurship and leadership disciplines reveals through the co-citation of journals different specialisation areas: business and entrepreneurship, management and psychology, organisational behaviour. This work provides researchers with an overview that encourages them to overcome the dominant male normative lens from new epistemological perspectives.

     

Women entrepreneurship in Middle East: Understanding barriers and use of ICT for entrepreneurship development

The main objective of the paper is to elaborate and suggest positive note on basic agenda existing in Middle East resisting the women entrepreneur growth development and use of ICT. The entrepreneurship among the women in Arabic countries has been lately given due consideration. In order for develop women entrepreneurship for economic growth their must be strong move by all stakeholders. ICT enables women entrepreneurs to extend equal participation compared to the male in the growth and development of the nation’s economy. The extended use of ICT will help the entrepreneur for creating advantage, research; participate in the global world of business for technology transfer, training, collaboration, and development initiatives at the global level. The paper tries to highlight the barrier for women for entrepreneurial growth and use of ICT with special reference to Middle East countries. The case related to women in two gulf countries will elaborate the deep insight of the issue.     

Role stress and entrepreneurship research

Entrepreneurship as a domain of research has grown by benefiting from more established disciplines. However, a commonality in the early stages of applying established theories to entrepreneurship is the lack of grounded research frameworks. This paper reviews literature on role stress and develops a conceptual framework that illustrates how this construct can serve entrepreneurship research. Based on a review of psychological and sociological literature, the paper proposes a model of antecedents and consequences to entrepreneur role stress. Suggestions for future research and practical implications are also presented.     

Life-course and entry to entrepreneurship:embedded in gender and gender-egalitarianism

ABSTRACT

Prior research has suggested that low gender egalitarianism results in a gender gap in entrepreneurship participation, as it provides men and women with different opportunities and constraints. However, this research has primarily relied on an unrealistic assumption, namely that gender-related opportunities and constraints occur evenly throughout different life stages. This paper details an institutional life-course model that explains gender-related patterns in individuals’ propensity to enter entrepreneurship and contingencies related to the level of gender-egalitarianism in society and individuals’ life stages. We test our conceptual model on a unique integrated dataset from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and the World Value Survey, encompassing a total of 672,781 adults in 71 countries.     

Perceptions and attitudes towards entrepreneurship. An analysis of gender among university students

The present article analyzes the existence of gender differences in the perceptions and attitudes of university students towards entrepreneurship. It measures perceptions of the public image of the entrepreneur, along with the desirability, viability and intentionality of students towards creating their own business. The empirical data for this research comes from a sample of university students who have attended a Business Creation program run by the venture capital association known as Fostering Entrepreneurs hip in Extremadura, Spain. Data analysis using bivariate and multivariate techniques reveal significant results, indicating that gender plays a significant role in how the figure of the entrepreneur is perceived and on the intention to generate new business.     

A cross cultural study of gender-role orientation and entrepreneurial self-efficacy

The study of gender differences in entrepreneurial self-efficacy to date has produced inconclusive results. Cross-cultural studies are virtually non-existent. The present study seeks to understand the complex interplay of biological sex, socialized gender-roles, and culture on entrepreneurial self-efficacy and motivation to become an entrepreneur. Findings indicate that among American business students the traditional view of “entrepreneur as male” is fading. For the next generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs, a new entrepreneur stereotype is emerging that balances stereotypical feminine and masculine characteristics. These findings were not replicated in Spain where traditional gender-role stereotypes associated with entrepreneurship persist, even among business students. Implications for entrepreneurial education are discussed as they relate to the development of skills associated with venture creation.     

Entrepreneurship as a non-profit-seeking activity

It is typically assumed that people engage in entrepreneurship because there are profits to be made. In contrast to this view, this paper argues that entrepreneurship is more adequately characterized as a non-profit-seeking activity. Evidence from a broad range of authors and academic fields is discussed showing that entrepreneurship does quite generally not pay in monetary terms. Being an entrepreneur seems to be rather rewarding because it entails substantial non-monetary benefits, like greater autonomy, broader skill utilization, and the possibility to pursue one’s own ideas. It is shown how incorporating these non-monetary benefits into economic models of entrepreneurship can lead to a better understanding of the phenomenon.

企业家精神与中国企业的国际化之路

中国的企业在国际化的过程当中，普遍都不是很成功。而根据经典的跨国公司成长理论综合研究发现中国企业并不缺少必要的物质与客观条件，所缺乏的只是正确的战略制定和战略执行的人，即优秀的企业家，据此本文提出支撑优秀企业家群体的企业家精神的缺失是导致中国企业很少国际化和国际化不成功的原因之一这一论断。在总结中国企业家精神的核心时，提出了三个最为核心的要素：创新，合作与社会责任。本文在解释中国企业家精神缺失的现象及其原因的同时也提到了如何在中国企业家当中重构这些重要的企业家精神要素。     

What makes entrepreneurship research interesting? Reflections on strategies to overcome the rigour–relevance gap

As entrepreneurship researchers compete to have their work published and universities strive to attract the best entrepreneurship scholars, it is appropriate to examine what makes entrepreneurship research interesting. Interesting studies are usually defined as well-crafted and well-written studies that challenge established knowledge, and produce new theories and findings. This paper examines entrepreneurship scholars’ views on the characteristics of interesting entrepreneurship research by means of a qualitative approach. Eight focus group interviews comprising junior and senior entrepreneurship scholars were conducted. A core finding is that interesting studies must be relevant to practice. However, the institutionalization of entrepreneurship as an academic field has favoured rigour at the cost of relevance, leading to scholars’ frustration with the rigour–relevance gap. In this paper, we analyse various dimensions of interestingness and reflect on strategies for overcoming the rigour–relevance gap, with particular focus on the creation of applicative knowledge.     

Refugee entrepreneurship in Belgium: Potential and practice

By promoting refugee entrepreneurship, both the integration of refugees in society can be aided and domestic entrepreneurship can be boosted. Refugee entrepreneurship has been an underdeveloped domain of scientific research though. There clearly exists a potential for refugee entrepreneurship in Belgium, but this is too seldom realized in practice. Male refugees who have been self-employed in the past and whose family is active as an entrepreneur have a higher appetite for entrepreneurship. Refugee entrepreneurs are mostly male, in their thirties and forties and active in ‘inferior’ sectors. It was also found that refugee entrepreneurs earn less than other entrepreneurs.     

Gender,risk and finance: why can't a woman be more like a man?

Whilst acknowledging that the influence of gender upon women's business ownership is now included as a legitimate addition to the contemporary entrepreneurship research agenda, we question the assumptions which frame this inclusion. We argue that whilst the masculinity of the entrepreneurial discourse has been recognized, this has promoted an almost exclusive focus upon women as the cipher for and personification of the gendered subject. Using explorations of risk and business finance in the context of entrepreneurship, we demonstrate how this presumption ascribes women a discrete but generic theoretical and empirical status associated with weakness and lack. Drawing upon a feminist stance, we suggest that the framing of this contemporary critique, rather than addressing the gender blindness endemic within entrepreneurship, actually generates ontological biases and associated epistemological limitations which perpetuate female disadvantage. These, in turn, constrain the theoretical and empirical reach of the broader field of entrepreneurship research.     

Entrepreneurship: Origins and returns

We examine the origins and outcome of entrepreneurship on the basis of exceptionally comprehensive Norwegian matched worker-firm-owner data. In contrast to most existing studies, our notion of entrepreneurship not only comprises self-employment, but also employment in partly self-owned limited liability companies. Based on this extended entrepreneurship concept, we find that entrepreneurship tends to be profitable. It also raises income variability, but the most successful quartile gains much more than the least successful quartile loses. Key determinants of the decision to become an entrepreneur are occupational qualifications, family resources, gender, and work environments. Individual unemployment encourages, while aggregate unemployment discourages, entrepreneurship.     

Token entrepreneurs: a review of gender,capital, and context in technology entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT

This article reviews the literature on gender and entrepreneurship in technology to explore individual and contextual factors maintaining the token status of women in this field. It examines how the intersection of gender and context influences participation rates in entrepreneurship, and suggests that the deeply embedded cultural and cognitive associations that frame both technology and entrepreneurship as masculine concepts create barriers for women when these contexts overlap. It offers a framework for research and practice that aids in the analysis of complex multi-level barriers that control access to the forms of capital necessary for initial and continued participation in technology entrepreneurship. Given calls for women to participate more fully in high-growth technology ventures, it highlights the need for research to incorporate broader analytical perspectives that simultaneously examine both the barriers faced by women in these contexts and the factors that systemically sustain them.     

大学生创业教育体系的建立

随着社会的不断发展,就业带来的压力迫使创业教育越来越受到高校的重视,本文通过调研创业成功人士,提炼了创业者的共性,建立了整体创业教育系统和"2+1"创业教育体系,详细阐述了"2+1"创业教育体系中的子系统,为学生能够自主创业奠定基础。     

‘Embrace the masculine; attenuate the feminine’ – gender,identity work and entrepreneurial legitimation in the nascent context

This article critically analyses how gender bias impacts upon women’s efforts to legitimate nascent ventures. Given the importance of founder identity as a proxy for entrepreneurial legitimacy at nascency, we explore the identity work women undertake when seeking to claim legitimacy for their emerging ventures in a prevailing context of masculinity. In so doing, we challenge taken for granted norms pertaining to legitimacy and question the basis upon which that knowledge is claimed. In effect, debates regarding entrepreneurial legitimacy are presented as gender neutral yet, entrepreneurship is a gender biased activity. Thus, we argue it is essential to recognize how gendered assumptions impinge upon the quest for legitimacy. To illustrate our analysis, we use retrospective and real time empirical evidence evaluating legitimating strategies as they unfold, our findings reveal tensions between feminine identities such as ‘wife’ and ‘mother’ and those of the prototypical entrepreneur. This dissonance prompted women to undertake specific forms of identity work to bridge the gap between femininity, legitimacy and entrepreneurship. We conclude by arguing that the pursuit of entrepreneurial legitimacy during nascency is a gendered process which disadvantages women and has the potential to negatively impact upon the future prospects of their fledgling ventures.     

The state of #digitalentrepreneurship: a big data Leximancer analysis of social media activity

This paper examined online sentiment, key themes and patterns evident in social media activity about digital entrepreneurship. It provides a snapshot-in-time, visual-first perspective on social media user-generated-content (UGC) to better understand the topic of digital entrepreneurship. Global data consisting of 31,017 publicly available UGC which used the #digitalentrepreneurship (hashtag) and the keywords ‘digital entrepreneurship’ were collected. A computer assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS), Leximancer, was used for an automated text-mining analysis. There is positive online sentiment surrounding digital entrepreneurship technology, ecosystem and industry, and one which promotes women transformation of digital entrepreneurship globally. Negative sentiment pointed out that future development and support of youth in digital entrepreneurship is needed. Digital entrepreneurs were identified as needing to focus on strategy, leadership, management, and social media platforms. A comprehensive perspective on the state of digital entrepreneurship in online UGC is provided. Insights into the challenges, issues, changes, success stories and key topics in digital entrepreneurship are highlighted. Future research is encouraged to adopt longitudinal and quantitative approaches, to provide further insights into the evolution of digital entrepreneurship. The paper contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by applying the Social Exchange Theory and the Social Media User Engagement Framework to better understand social media activity around digital entrepreneurship. The findings show that there are real challenges and issues to overcome but there are also changes occurring in digital entrepreneurship and social media users are keen to share and learn from digital entrepreneurship success stories.

     

Turning to the dark side: Challenging the hegemonic positivity of the creativity discourse

Using a Laclauian discourse approach this paper challenges the hegemony of articulations framing creativity as good, necessary, and as a source of valuable outcomes for organizations and individuals. Instead, this paper argues that creativity has a ‘dark side’, referring to that which is harmful and may result in pain, loss or suffering. We analyze and expose the hegemonic positivity of the creativity discourse within organization studies and discuss the implications of this hegemony. We conclude that the dark side of creativity has been subverted in the discourse and requires further scholarly exploration. To promote a greyer research agenda of creativity in organizations, we offer three theorizations of the dark side of creativity as antagonisms to the hegemony – the individual, collective, and critical. By challenging the hegemonic positivity of creativity and by providing a number of research imaginaries, this paper invites scholars to broaden the discourse and to embrace a more greyer understanding of creativity in organization studies.