Mind the gap: The role of gender in entrepreneurial career choice and social influence by founders

• Date: 01 May 2020
• Published date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3135
• Author: Mirjam Praag,Vera Rocha

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Mind the gap: The role of gender in

entrepreneurial career choice and social

influence by founders

Vera Rocha

1

| Mirjam van Praag

1,2

1

Department of Strategy and Innovation,

Copenhagen Business School,

Frederiksberg, Denmark

2

Management Board, Vrije Universiteit

Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Correspondence

Vera Rocha, Department of Strategy and

Innovation, Copenhagen Business

School, Kilevej 14A, 2000 Frederiksberg,

Denmark.

Email: vr.si@cbs.dk

Abstract

Research summary:Womencontinuetobedispropor-

tionately underrepresented in new venture creation. We

investigate whether and how founders can differently

influence future entrepreneurial career choices of their

male and female joiners. Using a large sample of startup

firms with personnel where founders interact closely with

joiners, we demonstrate that founders have a strong influ-

ence on a joiner's entrepreneurial career choice if both

are female. We find empirical support for role modeling

as a key underlying mechanism, accounting for alterna-

tive explanations such as selective matching based on

gender and push-driven factors. These findings increase

our understanding of the roles of socialization and orga-

nizational context in shaping the career outcomes of

employees, and provide evidence of a multiplier effect of

female entrepreneurs.

Managerial summary:Women are less likely to be

entrepreneurs than men. We investigate whether work-

ing in a startup founded by a woman instead of a man

influences individuals' decision to become an entrepre-

neur later. We find this to be the case for women. This

result is best explained by female founders acting as role

models for their female employees in male-dominated

domains. Female founders able to break gender stereo-

types seem to have an influence on the career choices of

their female employees, especially among those who

have lacked contact with entrepreneurs. Moreover, this

Received: 7 November 2017 Revised: 11 December 2019 Accepted: 20 December 2019 Published on: 28 January 2020

DOI: 10.1002/smj.3135

Strat. Mgmt. J. 2020;41:841–866. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/smj ©2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 841

influence is stronger if the female founder and employee

have similar backgrounds. These findings confirm the

importance of social interactions at work and suggest

new ways to inspire more women to launch startups.

KEYWORDS

entrepreneurship, female leadership, gender gaps, organizations,

role models

“Mathilde (Cazenave) is actually the reason I started Aurate in a way (while work-

ing at Marc Jacobs)…. The emotional part and the management part is what I grew

to ask Mathilde about the most; I look up to how she's done it in those roles.”

(Sophie Kahn, founder of Aurate)

1|INTRODUCTION

Understanding why entrepreneurial activities and behaviors unfold differently for different

individuals, and how they can be promoted, has been at the center of attention of many

scholars, including in strategy (e.g., Campbell et al., 2012; Carnahan, Agarwal, & Campbell,

2012; Lyons & Zhang, 2018). A deeply-rooted stream of research (Miller & Swanson, 1958) dem-

onstrates that socialization—with peers (e.g., Eesley & Wang, 2017; Kacperczyk, 2013), parents

(e.g., Lindquist, Sol, & van Praag, 2015), or coworkers (e.g., Nanda & Sørensen, 2010)—can

shape individual preferences for entrepreneurship. A parallel line of inquiry has shown how

certain organizational contexts (e.g., bureaucratic work environments or different corporate cul-

tures) can spawn new entrepreneurs among employees (Dobrev & Barnett, 2005; Sørensen,

2007a; Sørensen & Fassiotto, 2011).

Despite the scholarly and policy interest in the topic, which has increased the understanding

and promotion of entrepreneurial career choices, women remain a minority in new venture cre-

ation, even in countries where gender equality is relatively high (Tonoyan, Strohmeyer, &

Jennings, 2019). Scholars in various fields have studied this persistent female underrepresenta-

tion in entrepreneurship (e.g., Markussen & Røed, 2017; Shahriar, 2018; Thébaud, 2010), and

multiple (not mutually exclusive) explanations have been proposed.

First, the gendering of labor market positions prevents women from acquiring

entrepreneurship-relevant resources and limits their exposure to opportunities for new venture

creation (Tonoyan et al., 2019). Second, stereotypes and social norms generating gender-specific

role expectations are internalized by individuals and often discourage women from engaging in

entrepreneurship by anticipation of negative stereotype threats (Kossek, Su, & Wu, 2017;

Thébaud, 2010). Indeed, these threats are observed in critical stages of the entrepreneurial pro-

cess such as VC funding (Guzman & Kacperczyk, 2019). Third, and as a consequence, men and

women might develop distinct career preferences and opt-out of certain occupations due to per-

ceived misfit (Kossek et al., 2017). In fact, evidence suggests that men and women have differ-

ent preferences for specific careers and job attributes (Barbulescu & Bidwell, 2013), and

heterogeneous preferences may, in turn, lead individuals to select (Greenberg, 2014; Roach &

Sauermann, 2015; Sauermann, 2018) and stay (Carnahan, Kryscynski, & Olson, 2017) in

842 ROCHA AND VAN PRAAG