How gender stereotypes shape venture growth expectations
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How gender stereotypes shape venture growth expectations Alona Martiarena
Accepted: 20 September 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Drawing on gender role theories and related evidence of the influence of stereotypes on individual judgments and behaviors, this study examines how masculine stereotyping of entrepreneurs might affect business owners’ expectations of their firms’ growth. In particular, it explores several moderating effects: individual-level factors, such as the gender traits that business owners ascribe to other entrepreneurs and their own gender identity, as a psychological construct, as well as the industrial context in which the businesses operate. An empirical analysis of business owners in 10 countries reveals that women entrepreneurs who identify with feminine traits and ascribe strongly masculine characteristics to entrepreneurship expect their businesses to grow at a lower rate. The influence of stereotypes is relevant only in industries in which the representation of women entrepreneurs is low though, presumably because gender salience, as amplified by women’s minority status condition in the industry, triggers stereotype threats.
Keywords Women entrepreneurs . Gender roles . Stereotypes . Culture . Growth
JEL classifications L26 . J16 . D22
A. Martiarena (*) IE Business School – IE University, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected]
1 Introduction Women have a lower participation rate in creating new firms in most economies (Elam et al. 2019), and businesses headed by women tend to be underrepresented among high-growth ventures (Hechavarria et al. 2019). Such underrepresentation has prompted policy initiatives, designed to promote the growth of women-led businesses (Brush et al. 2006), help them realize their full potential, and ultimately increase the number of jobs created and their contributions to overall economic growth. The mechanisms leading to persistent sex differences in new firm creation appear to arise from subtle but profound threats, in the form of culturally defined gender stereotypes (Steele 1997). For example, masculine stereotyping of entrepreneurs might explain why fewer women intend to pursue entrepreneurship as a career (Gupta et al. 2008). To date however, little is known about how gender stereotyping might influence the postlaunch phase, by creating psychological barriers that prevent women entrepreneurs from achieving their full potential. Although a recent study indicates that feminine-stereotyped behaviors lower investors’ evaluations of entrepreneurs’ venture pitches (Balachandra et al. 2019), which may limit women entrepreneurs’ access to financial capital and firm growth, theoretical explanations are required to predict the impact of women entrepreneurs’ perceptions of their own capacity to engage in growth-related tasks. According to stereotype threat theory, members of a negatively stereotyped social group likely perceive a threat of being judged by stereotypes about their
A. Martiarena
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