Theorizing about gender and entrepreneurship: bridging the gap with social psychology (original) (raw)
2013, International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to approach women's entrepreneurship from a social psychological perspective, with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of the entrepreneurial phenomena and to its development as a field of research. Design/methodology/approach -The gender aspect of entrepreneurship is essentially socio-psychological in nature. First, the authors define the social psychology research scope and present a selection of social psychology theories that are particularly relevant to the domain of women's entrepreneurship. Concepts such as stereotypes, stereotype threat and role models are introduced. Second, the authors instantiate how the social psychology experimental method can address core questions in the women's entrepreneurship field, such as women's under-representation in entrepreneurial positions. Findings -The conclusion of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, social psychology theories can address crucial issues in women's entrepreneurship and on the other hand, experimentation as a research methodology enables us to determine causal relationships. However, given the specificities of both social psychology and women's entrepreneurship, we strongly recommend collaborative research between researchers in the two areas.
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