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In recent years, the promotion of female entrepreneurship has become a key area of debate among academics, policy makers and support agencies. This e-book on female entrepreneurship represents a significant contribution to the field, and is the first edited collection of articles which seriously address the challenges that women face in new venturing and enterprise development.

This text bridges gaps in the literature by offering an edited collection of contemporary research contributions that explore the complex nature of rural enterprise across a range of settings and geographical contexts. In particular, this book includes up to date policy contributions, as well as valuable insights into rural enterprise in practice.

The book draws upon new theoretical perspectives and approaches as a means of illustrating the inherently social and contextualized nature of entrepreneurial practice, and advance the manner in which we critically think about and engage with various aspects of entrepreneurial practice and development.

It is with great pleasure that, as guest co-editors, we bring you this special issue of the International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship (IJGE) based on a selection of papers presented at the 6th Diana International Conference. We are fortunate that the papers included in this special issue cover research undertaken in both developed (Australia, Canada and the UK) and developing countries (China and Vietnam) using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods (including in-depth interviews). Further, the sample selection processes involved in the studies was extremely varied. Two studies included both male and female subjects (one with entrepreneurs and the other with students). One study involved both female entrepreneurs and female non-entrepreneurs. The remaining two studies included only female entrepreneurs; with one of these studies restricted to females who had started their ventures at age 50 or older. This diversity of approaches and sample characteristics ensures that a breadth of gendered entrepreneurial experience is captured within the special issue. It also signals that research into gender and entrepreneurship has reached a point in its developmental timeline where a variety of methodologies and frameworks are both utilised and valued as a means of enriching our understanding of the phenomenon (from the small scale in-depth narrative perspectives possible via qualitative investigations through to samples of significant size being interrogated via quantitative processes). We believe the issues investigated in these studies, and the insights they provide, will help to substantially advance our understanding with respect to assessing entrepreneurial performance outcomes (EPOs). From what we have learned from the five papers selected for this special issue, and the available literature, we have formulated an over-arching framework that can be used to provide a holistic understanding and assessment of EPOs. At its core, the framework we advance suggests that to properly assess EPOs we need to understand and assess: the various goals an owner can have when starting a new venture; the factors that can potentially impact venture outcomes; and the owner’s overall satisfaction with those outcomes. Interestingly, while the literature draws a clear distinction between ‘necessity’, ‘opportunity’ and ‘lifestyle’ entrepreneurs, the Logan (2014) study highlights a fourth group of entrepreneurs; those driven to start a new venture to achieve ‘personal fulfilment’ (to ‘make a difference’). This suggests that we could view the goals for entrepreneurship as lying on some form of continuum, akin to Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs. At one end we have the ‘necessity’ entrepreneurs who are trying to satisfy basic ‘physiological’ needs, such as providing food and shelter for their families. At the other end of the scale we have individuals who enter entrepreneurship to satisfy much higher level needs; for example, to make a difference to society (to achieve ‘self-actualisation’). ‘Lifestyle’ and ‘opportunity’ driven entrepreneurs would fall somewhere between these two ends of the continuum. ‘Lifestyle’ entrepreneurs who are trying to achieve a balance between work and family may represent Maslow’s ‘love/affection/belongingness’ needs, while ‘opportunity’ driven entrepreneurs may be motivated by the need to demonstrate strength, competence, mastery, self-confidence, independence, self-respect and freedom; which Maslow categorized as ‘self-esteem’ needs. There are a number of implications that follow from this special issue. First, in terms of research, the framework we propose supports the argument advanced by Lewis (2008, p. 67) that to gain a proper understanding of SME performance outcomes “there needs to be a focus on the person that equals or supersedes the focus on the firm.” Second, with respect to policy makers, it is clear that government policies (for example, to stimulate SME growth) need to be designed having a proper understanding of the various: motives/goals that SME owners have; and external environmental factors that can impact the decision to start a new venture and the outcomes achieved. Finally, for anyone involved in providing advice to the SME sector it is important that, before providing that advice, they ensure they have a clear understanding of the owner’s goals. We trust that the holistic EPO assessment framework we have provided will help direct future research in the area and we welcome comments and further development of our framework.