The Effect of Gender on the Measurement of Entrepreneurial Orientation

The measurement of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is a cornerstone of research in entrepreneurship. However, common concepts involved in the operationalization of EO, namely risk-taking, innovativeness, and proactivity might be perceived as stereotypically masculine in nature. According to reasoning from social role theory, women might respond to measures of EO in ways that do not reflect the approaches of their firms but instead reflect their reaction to masculine stereotypes – stereotypes that might be more salient depending on survey response options. Gender-specific reactions might be especially likely in emerging economies where traditional gender stereotypes are strong. We test for the possibility that women might react to scales of EO in ways that differ from men through the analysis of a survey experiment of 499 entrepreneurs in Ethiopia. We find that the validity of EO measures in explaining firm revenue is lower among women than men; however, that effect is moderated by random assignment to different response scale types. Differences among men and women are greater with a common “descriptive” response scale that emphasizes the opportunity to disagree – but less pronounced with the use of a less common “branched” scale. We discuss important implications for the study of entrepreneurially-minded women and EO.