Teresa Nelson

Moving forward: institutional perspectives on gender and entrepreneurship

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a re‐directed and purposeful attention to the design of research on gender and entrepreneurship moving forward.Design/methodology/approach – The paper questions the value of more studies on the men v. women binary and encourages research on the institutions supporting the gendered construction.Findings – The paper suggests a re‐framing of gender (to include men, women, femininity, masculinity, etc.) both in topics investigated and in building the cadre of scholars engaged. It asks for discrimination of gender from biological sex in language use and believes that dialogue will be improved if the word “gender” is maintained as a socially constructed phenomenon directed at distinguishing the norms around “what women do” and “what men do”. Researchers, too, must necessarily confront personal pre‐existing ideas and language shaped by the norms and habits of ones upbringing and daily life in societies that are not acute observers of gender in action.Originality...

The Status of Women in Corporate Governance in High–Growth, High–Potential Firms:

Surveys of the largest U.S. corporations routinely demonstrate that the role of women in corporate governance is acutely limited. In this research we examine how high–growth entrepreneurial sectors of the economy compare to that standard. We posit that high demand labor markets, enhanced higher education of women, and dynamic industry and firm conditions could result in a greater participation of women executives in firms moving toward major corporate status through initial public offering. However, our study results show few significant differences between womens participation in high–growth, high–potential firms versus the Fortune 500. Several of the findings directly contradict our hypotheses, with lower rates of women as board directors and a greater likelihood of the executive team being composed exclusively of men in high–growth, high–potential firms. Women are not present in the top leadership spots of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Board Chair in either sector, and within high–growth firms are significantly less likely to be found on the boards of venture capital backed companies. The implications of these findings for companies, for policy, and for women and men planning careers in business are discussed.

Women entrepreneurs and venture capital: managing the shadow negotiation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to conceptually and empirically explore issues that explain why women entrepreneurs access only a small percentage of venture capital (VC) investment in the USA.Design/methodology/approach – The focus is on the situations women entrepreneurs face, and the strategies they adopt, to successfully fund their high‐growth businesses with venture funding. Rather than looking for answers at the individual level (men v women), the authors focus on the construct of gender and the way that the socially constructed business practices and processes of access to capital may appear neutral and natural but, in fact, may deliver differential consequences to women and men. When entrepreneurs and capital providers are interacting around the terms and particulars of a business venture, they are also participating in a less obvious conversation – an interaction that is call the Shadow Negotiation. Through interviews with women who have been successful or are in the process of accessing V...

Emergent identity formation and the co-operative: theory building in relation to alternative organizational forms

Abstract How are identities of alternative forms of organization constructed and how does this process differ relative to normative forms socially expected? In this research, we consider identity formation in co-operatives, a population of organizations allied globally through values and practices such as democratic participation, voluntary and open membership, and limited return to capital investment. As an extension of current thinking on identity formation in entrepreneurship and organizational theory, we use co-operatives to explore social expectations and institutional arrangements around form at the societal, population and organizational levels using a population ecology framework. We develop a research agenda based on propositions that address specific features of identity formation in less typical forms of organization, including tensions with normative business expectations, engagement with identity audiences, embeddedness in networks and alliances, structural factors influencing identity, and identity ambiguity.

Sex and gender in family business succession research: A review and forward agenda from a social construction perspective

This article focuses on how family business succession research has engaged and may be further enriched by application of a gender lens as socially constructed. We analyze the succession literature developing a gender terms vocabulary and five themes of historical engagement. Finding a lack of theoretical grounding, we apply the construct of gender, through expectation states theory, revising the Sharma and Irving model of successor commitment to examine how a socially constructed view of gender shifts and opens up points of view. We then present a forward looking agenda to motivate future scholarship.

Susan Murcott and Pure Home Water: Building a Sustainable Mission‐Driven Enterprise in Northern Ghana

Massachusetts Institute of Technology environmental engineer and social entrepreneur Susan Murcott has worked for more than two decades to deliver clean drinking water to the worlds poorest citizens. The stakes are high: polluted water is one of the worlds leading causes of disease and death, particularly for children under the age of five. In this case, Murcott launches a new social enterprise in the West African nation of Ghana. The demanding leadership role of the entrepreneur is highlighted as Murcott and her team face many standard start–up challenges around venture mission, market definition, and product pricing and quality within a culturally rich, global setting.

An engagement theory of governance: the dynamics of governance structures in high-growth, high-potential firms

This Handbook provides a unique collection of research addressing issues of corporate governance in entrepreneurial contexts, including start-ups, owner-managed firms, fast-growing firms, and IPOs, as well as how corporate governance and board leadership is associated with entrepreneurship and innovation in both small and large established companies. The chapters span a wide range of topics, methodologies, and levels of analysis, all designed to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of when and how corporate governance matters in different entrepreneurial contexts.

The Route to High Growth: Patterns of Financial and Operational Decisions for New Firms in France

Using a longitudinal dataset on a set of firms established, continuing, and closing over the period of 2002–2007 in France, we explore how a young firm’s financial policy and product market strategy may affect its growth path, as measured by employment growth. Financial decisions affect operational decisions. The aggressiveness of the firm is a means to obtain additional liquidities through higher sales levels, which then alleviates financial constraints allowing for additional operational spending. The “risk shifting” due to limited liability may also lead an entrepreneur to behave in a more aggressive manner and to promote a growth strategy. Our findings show that a small subset of new firms in France, exhibiting particular operational and financial patterns, has been at the origin of roughly 50 % of jobs created by the cohort within a 6 year period. We also find that certain entrepreneurial behaviors on the part of the founder/s are favorable for survivor firms to belong to the class of high-growth firms existing at the end of the observation.