The salient role of institutions in Women’s entrepreneurship: a critical review and agenda for future research

Institutions play an important role in women’s and men’s entrepreneurial behaviors. This article provides a systematic review of institutions and women’s entrepreneurship literature through an institutional lens, with a particular focus on informal and formal institutions. The article sets out to explore institutions for women’s entrepreneurship, illustrating why having an institutional perspective of women’s entrepreneurship contributes to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. To reach this aim, we analyze and classify the scholarship by explanatory factors and type of informal and formal institutions. The article suggests that gender roles, as an informal institution, influence the creation of both informal and formal institutions, and in turn, the women’s entrepreneurial behaviors is based on gender roles. Finally, a theoretical model is developed, which allocates women’s entrepreneurship in the center and shows the role of institutional environment in their decision to start new ventures. Implications for future research are finally discussed.