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Think BIQ: Gender Differences, Entrepreneurship Support and the Quality of Business Idea Description
(2023)
Entrepreneurship support, its influencing factors and female entrepreneurship are recently discussed topics with great relevance for society and politics. However, research on the subject has been divergent in its results and lacks a focus on the impact of support programs’ characteristics concerning different types of entrepreneurs. Thus, we conduct a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis on entrepreneurship support characteristics aiming to shed light on possible gender differences occurring in respective programs. We investigate the quality of business idea descriptions, as a predecessor for a high-potential business model, operationalized using inter alia causation and effectuation theory and social role theory as possible explanations. In our fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis on a sample of 911 Norwegian ventures, we find a variety of differences related to the entrepreneurs’ gender. For instance, that financial support combined with a well described key contribution or careful planning seem to be more important antecedents for female entrepreneurs’ business idea quality than for males. Moreover, it seems a well-described key contribution has a positive effect on the outcome variable in most cases. Another interesting finding concerns the entrepreneurs’ network partners, where we found evident gender differences in our combinations. Female entrepreneurs seemingly benefitted from rather small networks, and males from big networks, although the former possess larger networks in the sample. In conclusion, we find that gender differences in combinations of entrepreneurship support for high business idea quality still occur even in a country like Norway, calling for an adaption of the provided support and environment.
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.
