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This article explores female entrepreneurial activities in 13 Latin American and Caribbean countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay and Venezuela. Specifically, we explore the following research questions: What percentage of the female and male Latin American populations is involved in opportunity- and necessity-based entrepreneurial activities? And what quality of institutions is associated with female entrepreneurial activity opportunity and necessity rates? We comment on the impact of female entrepreneurship on economic development and conclude with implications for policy, practice and future research. Cet article explore les activités entrepreneuriales des femmes dans treize pays d’Amérique latine: l’Argentine, la Bolivie, le Brésil, le Chili, la Colombie, la République dominicaine, l’Équateur, la Jamaïque, le Mexique, le Pérou, le Porto Rico, l’Uruguay et le Venezuela. Plus précisément, nous soulevons les questions de recherche suivantes: quels sont les pourcentages de femmes et d’hommes qui sont engagés dans des activités d’entreprenariat de nécessité et d’opportunité? Quelle est la qualité des institutions associée aux taux d’entrepreneuriat de nécessité et d’opportunité parmi les femmes? Nous examinons l’impact de l’entreprenariat féminin sur le développement économique et ses implications en termes de politiques, pratiques et de recherches futures.

In this article, we explore how gendered entrepreneurship rates are affected by both soft (values, beliefs and expectations) and hard (institutionalized norms and practices) measures of cultural institutions. We use data from the 2001 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for 25 265 individuals in 11 countries to examine how institutional arrangements related to women's employment (role of occupational segregation, gender wage inequality, female business leadership and public childcare support) interact with individual-level perceptions in ways that increase women's start-up. Controlling for national variations in opportunity structure, our results show that gendered institutions (female business leadership, gender wage inequality and public expenditures on childcare) influence the decision to start a business indirectly through perceptions and gender. Dans cet article, nous examinons comment les taux d’entreprenariat féminin sont influencés par les institutions culturelles tant ‘douces’ (valeurs, croyances, attentes) que ‘dures’ (normes et pratiques institutionnalisées). Nous utilisons des données tirées de l’enquête Global Entrepreneurship Monitor de 2001 conduite sur 25 265 individus dans 11 pays différents afin de déterminer comment les arrangements institutionnels concernant le travail des femmes (rôle de la ségrégation professionnelle des femmes, les inégalités de salaires entre hommes et femmes, le leadership féminin en entreprise, les programmes publics d’accueil des enfants) influencent les perceptions individuelles de telles façons qu’elles augmentent le nombre de startups de femmes. En contrôlant les variations de structure d’opportunités qui existent entre les différents pays, nous montrons que les institutions (le leadership féminin en entreprise, les inégalités de salaires entre hommes et femmes, et les dépenses publiques consacrées à l’accueil des enfants ) influencent indirectement – à travers des perceptions concernant les sexes – la décision de créer une entreprise.

PurposeThis paper aims to address the rural and gender gaps in the immigrant entrepreneurship literature by exploring the start-up stories of 18 female immigrants who currently run a business in northernmost Norway.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a qualitative fieldwork including business visits and in-depth interviews. The transcripts from the interviews were analysed using a constructivist grounded theory (CGT) approach.FindingsFour modes of entry to entrepreneurship were identified: entrepreneurship as a way out of unemployment; entrepreneurship as a means to avoid underemployment, entrepreneurship as a means to live in a region of perceived attraction; and entrepreneurship as a preferred choice for women in satisfactory wage labour. In addition, the paper reveals the importance of family support and of spatial embeddedness among immigrant entrepreneurs living in a rural context.Practical implicationsThis study notes that the modes of entry to rural immigrant entrepreneurship are diverse, but that they are often partly related to the pursuit of an initial feeling of belonging in the new region of settlement. Hence, developing the knowledge of how to not only attract but also retain and increase the feeling of local belonging of immigrants may be important for many rural regions in the Western world. This is because rural immigrants not only represent a much needed in-flow of younger people in a typically decreasing and ageing population but also entail cultural variation and job creation, thus contributing to place development.Social implicationsThe paper argues for the importance of considering immigrant entrepreneurs as significant actors of rural development.Originality/valueWhile immigrant entrepreneurship has emerged as an important field of study, it has been criticised for focusing predominantly on men and for neglecting contextual variations in the analysis. The rural context especially has been largely omitted. By focusing on female immigrants having established a business in a rural context, the paper adds to the literature, firstly, by highlighting the experiences of female immigrant entrepreneurs. Secondly, it reveals that rural immigrant entrepreneurship cannot be conceived in terms of “ethnic resources” or “enclave economy” that are often central explanatory dimensions in megacity studies. Thirdly, it argues for the importance of considering both the spatial as well as the family contexts in the author’s theoretical conceptualizations of the (immigrant) entrepreneurial start-up phase.

Objective: The objective of this paper is to analyse motivation factors for female entrepreneurship in Mexico. In the proposed article, the authors discuss the factors which compelled women to start their enterprises in Mexico.Research Design Methods: Based on in-depth interviews with female entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship experts, the authors show which factors motivated women to start their own business in Mexico.Findings: The study proves that women in Mexico are motivated by a combination of push and pull factors, where the majority of the factors are pull factors. The findings of the study help to conclude that female entrepreneurship development is influenced by different factors including the entrepreneurs’ personal traits, social and economic factors. Due to their conservative traditional attitude, risk adverse tendency, and non-cooperation of family members, etc. women entrepreneurs are sometimes deterred to start a business in Mexico.Implications Recommendations: It is necessary to raise the awareness of different factors that promote female entrepreneurship in Mexico. Governmental programmes which support female entrepreneurship, business incubators, and networking could be very helpful for women when starting their own business.Contribution Value Added: The originality of this work lies in studying motivational factors for female entrepreneurship in Mexico. The Mexican society faces a big revolution towards female entrepreneurship. Based on the change of family structure and traditions, women nowadays are having more opportunities to develop as entrepreneurs.

Given the rising rate of migration across the globe, immigrant entrepreneurship is more than ever a topic of high theoretical and practical relevance. Immigrant entrepreneurship can offer host societies a win-win situation, generating incomes for immigrant entrepreneurs and contributing to knowledge transfer, innovativeness, and economic growth within the host economy. However, studies reveal that immigrant entrepreneurship is primarily male dominated and our understanding of the drivers and contextual factors that explain the gender gap is limited. Based on the mixed embeddedness approach, this multi-country study investigates the effects of immigrants’ embeddedness in supportive economic, social, and institutional environmental conditions on the gender gap in immigrant entrepreneurship. Our key findings are threefold: First, the results confirm that a gender gap in immigrant entrepreneurship exists. Female immigrants, compared with their male counterparts, are less likely to start and run their own business. Second, the results reveal that female immigrant entrepreneurship is encouraged by a supportive entrepreneurial environment, showing that policy can enhance female immigrant entrepreneurship through supportive conditions. Third, we find the same pattern of results for forced immigrants and opposite results for natives, suggesting that entrepreneurship is a “Plan A” employment strategy for (forced) female immigrants, whereas it is only a “Plan B” employment strategy for female natives.

Digital entrepreneurship has been described as a “great leveler” in terms of equalizing the entrepreneurial playing field for women. However, little is known of the emancipatory possibilities offered by digital entrepreneurship for women constrained by social and cultural practices such as male guardianship of female relatives and legally enforced gender segregation. In order to address this research gap, this paper examines women’s engagement in digital entrepreneurship in emerging economies with restrictive social and cultural practices. In so doing, we draw upon the analytical frameworks provided by entrepreneurship as emancipation and cyberfeminism. Using empirical data from an exploratory investigation of entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia, we examine how women use digital technologies in the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities. Our findings reveal that women in Saudi Arabia use digital entrepreneurship to transform their embodied selves and lived realities rather than to escape gender embodiment as offered by the online environment.

We examine entrepreneurs' economic, social, and environmental goals for value creation for their new ventures. Drawing on ethics of care and theories of societal post-materialism, we develop a set of hypotheses predicting patterns of value creation across gender and countries. Using a sample of 15,141 entrepreneurs in 48 countries from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, we find that gender and cultural values of post-materialism significantly impact the kinds of value creation emphasized by entrepreneurs. Specifically, women entrepreneurs are more likely than men to emphasize social value goals over economic value creation goals. Individuals who start ventures in strong post-materialist societies are more likely to have social and environmental value creation goals and less likely to have economic value creation goals. Furthermore, as levels of post-materialism rise among societies, the relationship between value creation goals and gender changes, intensifying both the negative effect of being female on economic value goals and the positive effect on social value goals. In other words, post-materialism further widens the gender gap in value creation goals.

The literature on female entrepreneurship is blooming and largely points to the challenges that women face in establishing and running a business, with a particular focus on access to information, finance and networks. Surprisingly, little is known on the role played by digital technologies in driving changes in female entrepreneurship. While academic research is starting to analyze the role that digital technologies play in entrepreneurial ecosystems, the gender perspective remains largely unexplored. In this paper, we outline contributions that intend to enlarge and thicken our understanding of whether and how women entrepreneurs leverage new digital technologies in the creation and conduct of new ventures in order to overcome the hurdles they face. We conclude with a promising new line of research to our understanding of whether and to what extent new digital technologies provide an opportunity space in the creation and conduct of new ventures for women.

This paper draws on practice theory to argue that the practiced culture of a society and gender interact to create cultured capacities for social entrepreneurship among entrepreneurs. We combine data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) with the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) and World Bank (WB) to identify what cultural practices are most relevant for female entrepreneurs’ practice of social entrepreneurship across 33 countries. Our findings suggest that female entrepreneurs are more likely to engage in social entrepreneurship when cultural practices of power distance, humane orientation, and in-group collectivism are low, and cultural practices of future orientation and uncertainty avoidance are high, when compared to male entrepreneurs.