Crossing the Chasm: Unlocking the Next Global Frontier of Female Entrepreneurship

The landscape surrounding female entrepreneurs has transformed significantly over the past 50 years. In 1972, there were 400,000 female owned businesses, a number that has risen to 13 million today (Poggesi, Mari, De Vita, and Foss, 2020; Women in Business Statistics, 2022). Indeed, female entrepreneurs and the businesses they run contribute significantly to economic growth and social development (GEM, 2016). To capitalize further on this growth, the literature advocates that females should play an even larger role in entrepreneurial endeavors (Yadav and Unni, 2016; Sarfaraz, Faghih and Majd, 2014). Despite the progress realized for female entrepreneurs, there remain ongoing challenges (Panda, 2018; Jennings and Brush, 2013). For instance, female entrepreneurs only account for 22.4% of entrepreneurial businesses overall, and the majority of these are small in scale, home-based and in non-technical disciplines focused on service and retail (Poggesi, Mari, De Vita, and Foss, 2020; Women in Business Statistics, 2022). Further, although women have made extraordinary strides in more technical related fields (Lee, Sugimoto, Zhang, and Cronin, 2013; Wang et al., 2020), females face persistent inequalities in entrepreneurial activities involving science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) (Ding, Murray, and Stuart, 2006; Gans, Hsu and Stern, 2008; Thelwall, Bailey, Tobin, and Bradshaw, 2019; Wang et al., 2020). The inequalities facing female entrepreneurs are attributed to both psychological factors such as gender stereotypes and perceptions of STEM fields as masculine-typed; and structural factors, such as the lack of role models, limited access to networks, and engrained organizational cultures (Botella, Rueda, López-Iñesta and Marzal, 2019; Hardey, 2019; Vitores and Gil-Juárez, 2016; Vorley et al., 2022). Extant research demonstrates that female entrepreneurs’ talents are often underestimated and even discounted (Tesfaye and Wainikka, 2022), which creates considerable difficulties in obtaining the financial and infrastructural support necessary for launching and growing new ventures (Panda, 2018). The challenges are exacerbated further for female entrepreneurs in developing countries, due to the lack of opportunities and resource constraints (Panda and Dash, 2014; 2016; Verhuel et al., 2006; Panda, 2018), and for female minority entrepreneurs, who encounter challenges based on both their gender and racioethnic identities (Smith et al., 2019; Rosette et al., 2018). While the landscape for female entrepreneurs has improved over the past five decades, significant obstacles to success undoubtedly remain; so, what now? The goal of this symposium is to dig into the challenges female entrepreneurs continue to face as the frontiers and boundaries of business expand. Drawing on a core concept in the entrepreneurship literature coined by Geoffrey A. Moore, we aim to shed light on how female entrepreneurship can collectively “cross the chasm” (Moore, 1991) and transition into more significant growth and success in the coming decades. To do so, we bring together accomplished scholars to share their novel empirical findings about the contexts facing female entrepreneurs and the factors that contribute to, and detract from, their ongoing effectiveness and success. Such a discussion is necessary if we are to reshape the entrepreneurial landscape for future generations of women. From Family to Family Business?: The Interplay of Relationships & Identity in a New Family Firm Author: Eliana Crosina; Babson College The Entrepreneurial Orientation of Women CEOs in Family vs NonFamily Firms Author: Kimberly A. Eddleston; Northeastern U. Author: Remedios Hernández-Linares; U. de Extremadura Author: María Concepción López-Fernández; U. de Cantabria Author: Franz Kellermanns; U. of North Carolina, Charlotte Unpacking female minority founders’ intersectional identity work in startup context Author: Pisitta Vongswasdi; WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management Author: Julia Katharina de Groote; WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management Author: Janine Vanessa Heinrich; - Author: Jamie Jocelyn Ladge; Northeastern U. It’s a guy thing: How the gender imbalance in VC produces gender bias investment effects Author: Lakshmi Balachandra; Babson College