Open Access

Carolin Schmidt, Rebecca Off, Yngve Dahle, Kevin Reuther, Guido H. Baltes

• Although entrepreneurship support, women entrepreneurship, and sustainable entrepreneurship are highly relevant for society, the environment, and politics, research on this topic is rare, the results are divergent and there is a lack of focus on the characteristics of support mechanisms. In light of this, we conduct a qualitative content analysis of an entrepreneurship support program for sustainable entrepreneurs in Sweden and its women entrepreneurs. The main objectives of this paper are to identify and investigate the factors that influence the matching of an entrepreneurship support program with women entrepreneurs, and to better understand these processes. This study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the establishment, recruitment, and decision to attend a support program from the different parties involved. By using data from semi-structured interviews, desk research and an additional dataset, we found ten prerequisites and factors that influence the matching process between an entrepreneurship support program and women entrepreneurs. The paper offers a matching model that highlights possible differences in the motivation of different stakeholders and the relationships between these differences. By focusing on women sustainable entrepreneurship, this paper contributes to the current discussion on the specific needs these entrepreneurs experience in the initial phases of entrepreneurship support and shows how policy makers and direct support providers can improve their support practices.