Análisis de los datos

Further issues arise when considering the concept of the entrepreneur from a gender perspective. The central critique is that much of the research into entrepreneurship is gendered from the male perspective (Stevenson, 1986; Gunnerd Berg, 1997; Hurley, 1999) and based upon the assumption that entrepreneurship is male entrepreneurship (Hill et al., 2006). Thus entrepreneurship is a ‘gendered phenomenon’ (Nilsson, 1997 p240) reflecting ‘the historically masculine framed basis of the heroic entrepreneur’ (Wilson and Tagg, 2010, p78). Indeed, it is argued that male-centred business is the normal model of business and when female entrepreneurs launch businesses they enter a situation constructed and dominated by men and as such they must adapt and operate by rules that have been constructed by men (Baker et al., 1997).

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Examples of how the concept of entrepreneurship is ascribed what are perceived to be ‘male’ qualities, can be found in the commonly held perceptions of entrepreneurs and their attributes. For instance, research into bank loan officers’ perceptions of the qualities that a successful entrepreneur would possess found a range of characteristics attributed to entrepreneurship. These included leadership; autonomy; the propensity to take risks; readiness for change; a lack of emotionalism and the ability to persuade. However, women were never judged to be more entrepreneurial than men on any of these characteristics (Buttner and Rosen, 1988).

Similarly, further research also found that loan officers tended to regard women as ‘nurturing’ and ‘caring’ rather than ‘dominating’ and ‘achieving’. Unfortunately, unlike ‘achieving’ neither ‘nurturing’ nor ‘caring’ are often cited examples of entrepreneurial characteristics (Fay and Williams, 1993). These two studies illustrate the divergence between the characteristics that women are perceived to possess and those that entrepreneurs are perceived to possess and illustrate the stereotypically male assumptions attached to the concept of the entrepreneur. This perception is encapsulated in Bruni et

al.’s (2005) statement that ‘the features of entrepreneurship reside in the symbolic domain of initiative taking, accomplishment and the relative risk. They therefore reside in the symbolic domain of the male’ (p1).

There is also evidence to suggest that this perception may be slow to change, as recent research has found that young people continue to perceive entrepreneurship as a ‘male’ occupation. Indeed, a recent comparative study across three countries found that both men and women perceived entrepreneurship as a male-typed occupation and entrepreneurship continues to be viewed as ‘manly’ work in society (Gupta et al., 2009).

This perception of the entrepreneur as stereotypically male is further recounted in the experiences of female entrepreneurs. For instance, Marlow (1997) found that of the female entrepreneurs who cited credibility as problematic, over half had been mistaken by prospective customers and suppliers as the owner’s wife or secretary rather than the entrepreneur in their own right. Similarly, in a study of business services entrepreneurs in Scotland, 30% of the female respondents had experienced problems in being taken seriously as business people, whilst none of the men had encountered this problem (Shaw

et al., 2009). Thus it is important that research into female entrepreneurship is cognisant

of the gendered nature of entrepreneurship, otherwise it may merely act to legitimize and reinforce the male-centred gendered notion of entrepreneurship (Bruni et al., 2004).

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In fact, Gunnerud Berg (1997) was critical of the problem of ‘gender blindness’ (p259) in the existing research, were much of the theory had been constructed regarding male entrepreneurs to which female entrepreneurs were then merely compared. This domination of the current literature from a male perspective had resulted in the perspectives of female entrepreneurs being marginalized (Hill et al., 2006). Historically entrepreneurship research has focused predominantly on men. For example, Hurley (1999) argues that a significant proportion of the research conducted on entrepreneurship in the

early 19th century and later in the 1920’s utilised case studies regarding male

entrepreneurs. Female entrepreneurs who operated businesses from their homes were not included in the research (Hurley, 1999). Therefore the early definitions of the entrepreneur were based on a male perspective.

Furthermore, specific research into the effects of gender on entrepreneurialism only emerged in the 1970’s and 1980’s (Walker, 2000; Carter et al., 2001) with academic interest and research into female entrepreneurship beginning in the mid-1970s in the USA and the mid-1980s in the UK (Carter et al., 2001). However, the research was slow to accumulate and during the 1980’s academics described a paucity of research with regards to the female entrepreneur (Pellegrino and Reece, 1982; Bowen and Hisrich, 1986) finding that the female entrepreneur had virtually been ignored (Birley et al., 1987). More recently, research into female entrepreneurs remains a marginal topic (Holmquist, 1997) and there is still a lack of research regarding female entrepreneurs (Brush, 1992; Rosa and Hamilton, 1994; Mukhtar, 1998; Menzies et al., 2004) with gaps in the research into female entrepreneurship (Knorr, 2011).

This is reflected in the general entrepreneurship literature with Baker et al. (1997, p221) finding women to be ‘virtually invisible’ in the literature on entrepreneurs. Furthermore in a study of business school case studies, only 10% featured a female chief decision maker (Greene et al., 1999). Moreover, in a study analysing the media portrayal of entrepreneurs between 1989 and 2000 in a major British broadsheet newspaper, only 13 female entrepreneurs were featured in the 480 articles sampled, prompting the authors to conclude that ‘the entrepreneurial myth is male’ (Nicholson and Anderson, 2005, p163). In charting the development of entrepreneurship research in the UK, Blackburn and Smallbone (2008) analysed the topics covered in research papers presented at the 1996 ISBE Conference, the UK national research conference, and found that no research papers included female entrepreneurship. However, research papers on female entrepreneurship were on the agenda at the 2006 conference (ibid) and there is now also a gender track at the

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conference. In 2009 a new journal, the International Journal for Gender and Entrepreneurship, was launched which focuses specifically on research into gender and entrepreneurship. Whilst the situation may now be improving, the previous lack of coverage of female entrepreneurship, in both the media and academic press, may have contributed to and help perpetuated the gendered image of entrepreneurship as a male activity.

In a similar fashion to the problems that plague the wider entrepreneurship research field, research into female entrepreneurship also suffers from a lack of theory. Stevenson (1986) suggested that further research should be undertaken into female entrepreneurship and that this research should be analysed in order to construct theories which apply to the female entrepreneur. However, prominent academics have continued to highlight the fact that subsequent research into female entrepreneurship has continued to fail to engage in theory building (Brush, 1992; Read, 1998; Carter et al., 2001) with Brush (1992) noting that one- third of the studies reviewed did not address any theoretical concepts. In addition, Mirchandi (1999) laments that much of the gender work in entrepreneurship research does not utilise the theory generated by feminist thought. Thus further insight into female entrepreneurship, indeed what Greene et al. (2003) term a ‘unique subset of

entrepreneurship,’ could be garnered by conducting research that explores theoretical

concepts.

Considering theoretical differences could also help explore the diversity amongst female entrepreneurs. In practice, female entrepreneurs are not a homogeneous group (Holmquist, 1997; Warren and Walters, 1998; McGregor and Tweed, 2002; Marlow and Carter, 2004; Sarri and Trihopoulou, 2005; Constantinidis et al., 2006; Hill et al., 2006). However, differences between women have been under-emphasized (Mirchandi, 1999) and current research has often ignored the differences between the female entrepreneurs (Haines et al., 1999; Hill et al., 2006) with many studies generalising the behaviour of women business owners and ignoring the differences between them and the businesses they operate (Brush, 1992). This omission is troublesome as the heterogeneity of female entrepreneurs is reflected in the differences between their businesses, for example firms vary with regards to their sector, age and performance (Brush, 1992; Haines et al., 1999).

Despite this diversity amongst female entrepreneurs, Marlow (1997) offers justification as to why research can continue to be conducted along gender lines, arguing that although women are not a homogeneous group, gender does shape experiences in the workplace and

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therefore it is reasonable to assume that it may also effect self-employment. There are also calls for future research to attempt to examine the possible differences between female entrepreneurs, that is any possible intra-gender differences (Sonfield et al., 2001; Marlow and Patton, 2005; Hill et al., 2006; Lewis, 2006). Overall, whilst the knowledge of female entrepreneurs has increased, there are many questions that remain unanswered and further research into the topic is required (Brush, 1992; Rosa and Hamilton, 1994; Holmquist, 1997; Mukhtar, 1998; Menzies et al., 2004). As Greene et al. (2003) summarise

‘researchers from around the world have been studying women’s entrepreneurship for approximately 25 years. While our knowledge of the phenomena has increased dramatically, there are still many questions unanswered’ (p26).