مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

 مجله تحقیقات بازاریابی – Journal of Business Research

Women and entrepreneurship have become an important research domain (Carrasco, 2014; Jennings & Brush, 2013; Nissan, Carrasco, & Castaño, 2012). The country-level literature regarding female entrepreneurship mostly uses the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data collected in over 60 countries (Acs, Desai, & Hessels, 2008), whereas studies based on individual-level data often focus simply on qualitative research with small samples within countries. A few exceptions include Lee and Osteryoung (2001), Verheul, Stel, and Thurik (2006), Kobeissi (2010), and Batsakis (2014). In view of this paucity of international comparative studies on female entrepreneurship, researchers have called for more quantitative, cross-cultural, investigations exploring female entrepreneurship across countries (Ahl, 2006; Hughes, Jennings, Brush, Carter, & Welter, 2012), and under different institutional environments (Carrasco, 2014). To answer this call, this study examines data in countries ranging from Canada, Poland, and Turkey, through Morocco, and Egypt, to South Korea and China drawing on stages of economic development (SEDs).

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether SEDs affect women entrepreneurs in the same way across international borders. Specifically, the authors use a framework by Porter (1990), which suggests that countries go through five stages of economic growth – factor-driven, efficiency-driven, and innovation-driven – and two transition phases, one between the factor and efficiency-driven stages, and between the efficiency and innovation-driven stages. Countries in the factor-driven stage compete through low cost efficiencies in commodity production or low value-added products. They have poor supportive policies and need to improve basic and social infrastructure. Efficiencydriven countries are increasingly using efficient production practices for large markets, and economies of scale. Knowledge-intensive activities characterize the innovation-driven stage. The share of manufacturing to services decreases. This stage places a greater emphasis on innovation to generate national wealth.

Given the importance of context (Hughes et al., 2012), this study applies the family embeddedness perspective (Aldrich & Cliff, 2003) to investigate women entrepreneurs and their businesses in SEDs. Women’s entrepreneurial activity presents a strong link with family systems (Cetindamar, Gupta, Karadeniz, & Egrican, 2012; Jennings & Brush, 2013). The study examines two support systems: family instrumental (organizational and financial) support, and family moral support. Female entrepreneurs frequently perceive their businesses as efforts entrapped with their familial relationships and responsibilities (Jennings & Brush, 2013) so their approaches in managing work-life balance affect the family (Cetindamar et al., 2012; Pathak, Goltz, & Buche, 2013; Powell & Eddleston, 2013; Rey-Martí, Porcar, & Mas-Tur, 2015).