What we Know about the Mothers of Invention’ Women’s Entrepreneurship Research: Past Trends, Future Directions Professor Anne de Bruin Presentation at Best of ESTRAD, 11 June 2007 Stockholm

The Phenomenon of Women’s Entrepreneurship  WOB are a significant and important presence in the world economy  WOB is one of fastest growing populations of entrepreneurs around the world  WOB contribute to innovation, employment, wealth, in all economies YET…. A continuing Gender Gap in academic research

Research Perspectives: Chronology  1970’s -1980’s - Gender as a Variable  1990s ’s Gender as a Lens  A lens with which to conduct research not just a variable to measure  Context and feminist perspectives important (Greene, Brush & Gatewood, 2006)

Mitigating the Gender Gap  Propose a new gender-aware framework to provide a springboard for future research and policy (de Bruin, Welter and Brush 2007)  Extends existing framework of ‘3Ms’ of venture creation and growth: market, money, management to a ‘5M’ framework  to enable the study of women’s entrepreneurship in its own right

Women ’ s Entrepreneurship 5M Framework  Assume that all entrepreneurship is socially embedded  Explicitly explore this embeddedness through incorporation of two facets: ‘Motherhood’ - metaphor to represent the household/family context  Draws attention to the fact that family/household contexts might have a larger impact on women than men ‘Meso’ and ‘Macro’ Environment to represent socio-economic and cultural context of entrepreneurship

Interconnectedness of the 5 Facets Centre M’HER Spotlights ‘gender as a process integral to business ownership’ Top Venn Circle ‘Market’ - Encapsulating also opportunity, the well-spring for all entrepreneurship. Bottom circles - Entry and survival in the market, requires money and management - enablers of opportunity exploitation Surround - Encompassing influences mediate and shape other facets e.g. macro social norms, gender socialization mediate M’Her or Market; sex segregated networks mediate Money etc.

The Future Research Agenda 5 Questions 1.What Approaches should be used to study Women’s Entrepreneurship? 2.Do we need a Separate ‘theory’ of women’s entrepreneurship? 3.How can the Legitimacy of studying women’s entrepreneurship by elevated? 4.Should we build a separate Scholarly Community? 5.How do we grow Synergies between researchers, policy-makers and also women entrepreneurs themselves?