Women's Entrepreneurship
- LAST MODIFIED: 29 June 2015
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846740-0042
- LAST MODIFIED: 29 June 2015
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846740-0042
Introduction
Women’s entrepreneurship research focuses on the processes, contexts, and outcomes of female-led business. It seeks to understand why women become entrepreneurs; how they identify opportunities, mobilize resources, and build business ventures; and what types of outcomes they experience. While a central goal is to build knowledge about women’s experiences, a closely related goal is to understand how gender shapes entrepreneurship by comparing the experiences of women and men. Studies examine women entrepreneurs in a wide range of settings, from self-employment to micro and home-based business to high-growth enterprises and university spinouts. This diversity reflects different approaches to, and definitions of, women’s entrepreneurship—an important issue to keep in mind when drawing comparisons across studies. Research first emerged in the mid-1970s. Numerous developments since then—including special issues, books, a dedicated journal, and conferences such as the Diana International Research Conference and the “We Own It” Summit—have created a vibrant, multidisciplinary area of study that attracts attention from scholars, policymakers, governments, and practitioners around the world. The keen interest is a reflection of several factors, including the appreciation of entrepreneurship’s critical role in building robust economies, the growing recognition of women’s (historically ignored) economic contributions, and broader scholarly discourse regarding the nature, causes, and consequences of gender differences. Work in the area serves multiple audiences, exploring a wide range of topics through diverse theoretical and methodological approaches. Although it draws strongly from business-related fields such as entrepreneurship and organizational studies, it also casts a wide intellectual net, drawing on disciplines such as sociology, psychology, economics, and women’s/gender studies. Our selected readings attempt to reflect this diversity. The first section provides an introduction to general resources, including general overviews, critical reviews, edited collections, books, journals, special issues, and statistical reports. The second section contains readings in key topic areas, ranging from standard entrepreneurship topics—such as opportunity identification and resource acquisition—to specific topics discerned by women’s entrepreneurship scholars, such as gender stereotyping, work-family issues, and gendered macro and policy environments. Selecting just a few readings for each section is difficult, given the rapidly growing scholarship available. Our goal has been to offer a broad overview of the field that highlights influential, exemplary, and innovative work. The authors gratefully acknowledge the excellent research assistance provided by Qin Han, Kurtis Letwin, and Emily Wooding, as well as the constructive feedback from the external reviewers.
General Resources
A number of resources provide valuable introductions and orientations to the field. The following sections identify influential and frequently cited publications, including general overviews, critical reviews, edited collections, books, academic journals, and statistical reports.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Abusive Supervision
- Adverse Impact and Equal Employment Opportunity Analytics
- Alliance Portfolios
- Alternative Work Arrangements
- Applied Political Risk Analysis
- Approaches to Social Responsibility
- Assessment Centers: Theory, Practice and Research
- Attitudes
- Attributions
- Authentic Leadership
- Automation
- Bayesian Statistics
- Behavior, Organizational
- Behavioral Approach to Leadership
- Behavioral Theory of the Firm
- Benefits
- Between Organizations, Social Networks in and
- Brokerage in Networks
- Business and Human Rights
- Career Studies
- Career Transitions and Job Mobility
- Charismatic and Innovative Team Leadership By and For Mill...
- Charismatic and Transformational Leadership
- Compensation, Rewards, Remuneration
- Competitive Dynamics
- Competitive Heterogeneity
- Computational Modeling
- Conditional Reasoning
- Conflict Management
- Considerate Leadership
- Corporate Philanthropy
- Corporate Social Performance
- Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB)
- Creativity
- Cross-Cultural Communication
- Cross-Cultural Management
- Cultural Intelligence
- Culture, Organization
- Data Analytic Methods
- Decision Making
- Diversity
- Dynamic Capabilities
- Emotional Labor
- Employee Aging
- Employee Engagement
- Employee Voice
- Empowerment, Psychological
- Entrepreneurial Firms
- Entrepreneurial Orientation
- Entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurship, Corporate
- Entrepreneurship, Women's
- Equal Employment Opportunity
- Ethics
- Faking in Personnel Selection
- Family Business, Managing
- Feedback
- Financial Markets in Organization Theory and Economic Soci...
- Findings, Reporting Research
- Fit, Person-Environment
- Forecasting
- Global Leadership
- Global Talent Management
- Goal Setting
- Grounded Theory
- Hofstedes Cultural Dimensions
- Human Capital Resource Pipelines
- Human Resource Management
- Human Resource Management, Strategic
- Human Resources, Global
- Human Rights
- Humanitarian Work Psychology
- Humility in Management
- Impression Management at Work
- Imprinting
- Innovative Behavior
- Intelligence, Emotional
- International Economic Development and SMEs
- International Economic Systems
- International Strategic Alliances
- Job Analysis and Competency Modeling
- Job Crafting
- Job Design
- Job Satisfaction
- Judgment and Decision Making in Teams
- Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration within and across Firm...
- Leader-Member Exchange
- Leadership Development
- Leadership Development and Organizational Change, Coaching...
- Leadership, Ethical
- Leadership, Global and Comparative
- Leadership, Strategic
- Licensing
- Management History
- Management In Antiquity
- Managerial Discretion
- Meaningful Work
- Mentoring
- Multinational Corporations and Emerging Markets
- Neo-institutional Theory
- Neuroscience, Organizational
- New Ventures
- Organization Design, Global
- Organization Development and Change
- Organization Theory
- Organizational Adaptation
- Organizational Behavior, Emotions in
- Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs)
- Organizational Climate
- Organizational Control
- Organizational Corruption
- Organizational Identity
- Organizational Justice
- Organizational Legitimacy
- Organizational Networks
- Organizational Paradox
- Organizational Performance, Personality Theory and
- Organizational Responsibility
- Organizational Surveys, Driving Change Through
- Organizations, Big Data in
- Organizations, Gender in
- Organizations, Identity Work in
- Organizations, Political Ideology in
- Organizations, Social Identity Processes in
- Overqualification
- Passion
- Paternalistic Leadership
- Pay for Skills, Knowledge, and Competencies
- People Analytics
- Performance Appraisal
- Planning And Goal Setting
- Proactive Work Behavior
- Psychological Contracts
- Psychological Safety
- Recruitment
- Regional Entrepreneurship
- Reputation, Organizational Image and
- Research, Ethics in
- Research, Longitudinal
- Research Methods
- Research Methods, Qualitative
- Resource-Dependence Theory
- Resources
- Response Surface Analysis, Polynomial Regression and
- Role of Time in Organizational Studies
- Safety, Work Place
- Selection
- Selection, Applicant Reactions to
- Self-Determination Theory for Work Motivation
- Self-Efficacy
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy In Management
- Self-Management and Personal Agency
- Sensemaking in and around Organizations
- Service Management
- Shared Team Leadership
- Social Cognitive Theory
- Social Evaluation: Status and Reputation
- Social Movement Theory
- Social Ties and Network Structure
- Socialization
- Stakeholders
- Status in Organizations
- Strategic Alliances
- Strategic Human Capital
- Strategy
- Strategy and Cognition
- Strategy Implementation
- Stress
- Structural Contingency Theory/Information Processing Theor...
- Team Composition
- Team Conflict
- Team Design Characteristics
- Team Learning
- Team Mental Models
- Team Newcomers
- Team Processes
- Teams, Global
- Technology and Innovation Management
- Technology, Organizational Assessment and
- the Workplace, Millennials in
- Theory X and Theory Y
- Time and Motion Studies
- Training and Development
- Training Evaluation
- Trust in Organizational Contexts
- Turnover
- Unobtrusive Measures
- Validity
- Virtual Teams
- Whistle-Blowing
- Work and Family: An Organizational Science Overview
- Work Contexts, Nonverbal Communication in
- Work, Mindfulness at
- Workplace Aggression and Violence
- Workplace Coaching
- Workplace Commitment
- Workplace Gossip
- Workplace Meetings
- Workplace, Spiritual Leadership in the
- World War II, Management Research during