This meta-analysis of 31 studies over 20 years advances our understanding of the gender gap in entrepreneurial bank finance. Findings from previous research on the relationship between entrepreneurs’ gender and bank financing are mixed, which suggests the need to pay particular attention to entrepreneurs’ social context. In this study, we develop a model of how social gender norms explain variation in women entrepreneurs’ (vis-à-vis men entrepreneurs’) access to bank finance. Specifically, we theorize how women’s formal (their nations’ political ideologies) and informal (women’s empowerment) social standing within their societies influence gender discrimination in entrepreneurial bank financing. Consistent with most previous studies, our baseline results show that women entrepreneurs’ business loan applications are rejected to a greater extent than men entrepreneurs’ loan applications. Women entrepreneurs also pay higher interest rates on loans than men entrepreneurs. Further, in societies dominated by a conservative (rather than a liberal) political ideology, the positive relationship between women entrepreneurs and loan interest rates is more positive. Interestingly, gender discrimination in loan rejection and interest rates is magnified in societies with greater women’s empowerment. Taking a social gender-norm perspective, our analysis establishes a gender gap in entrepreneurial bank finance, and we outline an agenda for further research.

As enterprise education plays a larger role in schools and young individuals increasingly become the target of entrepreneurial and enterprise policy initiatives, there is a growing need to understand how entrepreneurial intentions can be fostered. This study builds on analyses of interviews with young potential entrepreneurs and their young counterparts, delving more deeply into the identity construction that motivates some individuals, but not others, to develop entrepreneurial identities and enterprise intentions. The findings outline two contrasting routes to identity construction, shedding light on how enterprise intentions are motivationally embedded and providing details on the micro-foundations of identity formation that shape these identities and intentions toward enterprise activity.

A global analysis of previous research over the last three decades shows that women entrepreneurs face a higher rate of business loan denials and increased interest rates in loan decisions made by commercial bankers. Interestingly, the data also reveals that the formal and informal standing of women in a particular society can provide clues to some of the true hurdles to positive change. This article reviews these hurdles, and offers three recommendations for change.

Environmental entrepreneurship has tremendous potential to deliver radical and disruptive technology innovation that can safeguard our biosphere. However, we lack insights into how green ventures can cultivate dynamic capabilities that allow these ventures to thrive. The existing dynamic capability framework does not adequately capture the unique challenges and opportunities facing early-stage green ventures. Consequently, in this study we ask: what are the micro-foundations underpinning dynamic capabilities in early-stage green ventures? How are these dynamic capabilities cultivated? How do these dynamic capabilities correspond to and co-develop with external factors in flux when disruptive green innovation is commercialized? This paper is based on an exploratory case study of 14 ventures developing green innovations in the biofuel, bioenergy, biochemistry, and biomaterial sectors. Our study conceptualizes the micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities related to sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring capabilities. Moreover, it develops a detailed and comprehensive framework of dynamic capability building for early-stage green ventures, which links internal dynamic capability building processes with influential external factors in flux.

This paper explores how government venture capitalists approve or reject financing applications. Based on longitudinal observations, complemented by interviews, documentation, and secondary data, the findings show the limited influence of the regulative and normative logics (e.g., formal guidelines and accepted behavior) on government venture capitalists’ decisions. Instead, individual decisions are observed to be largely overshadowed by cognitions and heuristics, which dominate formal regulations and socially constructed group-level norms. Although official decision communications state that regulations have been followed, the evidence suggests that the cognitive logic dominates the funding decision-making process through a set of overshadowing forces that restrict the influence of the normative and regulative logics on funding decisions. This research has implications for venture financing and highlights the importance of cognitions in shaping venture capital decisions.

Betydelsen av könsdiversifierad styrelse har debatterats och tidigare forskningsstudier har visat blandade resultat. En viktig orsak till de blandade resultaten är att många studier jämfört styrelser helt i avsaknad av kvinnor med styrelser där en eller två kvinnor är representerade. Det har varit ett faktum att andra analysmöjligheter inte varit möjliga då alltför få företag haft en jämn könsfördelning i styrelserna. De blandade resultaten har också hänförts till att tidigare studier haft brist på kontrollvariabler och i många fall använt begränsade prestationsmått. Den omfattande databasen som den här rapporten bygger på inkluderar hela populationen av svenska aktiva aktiebolag år 2013. Detta möjliggjorde för nydanande analyser där fokus riktats mot hur jämn eller ojämn könsfördelning i styrelser relaterar till reell företagsprestation i form av lönsamhet och omsättning.

Resultaten i rapporten visar ekonomisk ineffektivitet av obalans i styrelsers könsfördelning. Kortfattat visar rapportens resultat att svenska aktiebolag med en jämn könsfördelning i styrelsesammansättning har högre lönsamhet och högre omsättning än företag med ojämn könsfördelning i styrelsesammansättning. Resultaten visar att sambanden gäller även när alternativa förklaringar till lönsamhet och omsättning läggs till i analysen. De alternativa förklaringarna utgörs i rapporten av vilken bransch företag tillhör, om VDn är kvinna eller man, om företaget ingår i koncern eller ej, samt hur många anställda företaget har. Därmed visar rapporten att ojämn könsfördelning medför försummade möjligheter till makroekonomisk tillväxt.

Både etik och ekonomisk effektivitet kan argumenteras för som skäl för jämn könsfördelning i bolagsstyrelser. Om etik och moral inte är ett tillräckligt motiverande argument för könsdiversifiering i bolagsstyrelser, så kan det ekonomiska effektivitetsperspektivet som rapportens resultat stödjer motivera krafttag till förändrad könsfördelning i styrelserummen.

We introduce Personal Construct Theory (PCT) and the Repertory Grid methodology to investigate deeper differences in the way government venture capital financiers cognitively process to evaluate 77 investment proposals from women and men entrepreneurs. In our study of financiers’ who are by law forbidden to discriminate, we reveal an underlying cognitive bias when evaluating women entrepreneurs. We find that the difficulty when assessing women’s venture potential, as indicated by the greater thought complexity and the excessive weight financiers place on the person rather than the full business case, can be considered to represent the underlying thought mechanism that affect women’s chances of securing financing. This finding suggests women entrepreneurs are looked upon as being role incongruent: misdirecting attention in evaluations. Evaluating women entrepreneurs is a cognitive challenge, because they deviate from the stereotype of an entrepreneur.

Critical to top management’s organizing efforts are the formal rules for how organizational members are to make decisions. However, employees can break top management’s decision‐making rules. Although scholars have investigated rule breaking at the individual and group levels of analysis, research is needed into how members come together as a group to break an organization’s decision‐making rules, and how groups’ rule breaking persists. To address this important research gap, we draw from a real‐time qualitative investigation of both the breaking and following of decision‐making rules to develop a group model that: (1) explains how an individual can trigger his or her group to break decision‐making rules to generate perceived benefits for the group and/or others external to the organization, (2) provides insights into the mechanisms by which rule breaking persists, and (3) highlights the norms of developing and perpetuating groups’ breaking decision‐making rules.