549779

research-article2014
ISB0010.1177/0266242614549779International Small Business JournalHenry et al.

is
Small Firms

Article bj
International Small Business Journal
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Gender and entrepreneurship © The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0266242614549779
methodological approaches* isb.sagepub.com

Colette Henry and Lene Foss

School of Business and Economics, UiT- The Arctic University of Norway

Helene Ahl
Jönköping University, School of Education and Communication, Sweden

Abstract
This article presents the findings of a systematic literature review (SLR) of the gender and
entrepreneurship literature published in 18 journals over a 30-year period. The SLR sought to
identify methodological trends in the field of gender and entrepreneurship and to critically explore
the type of methodological innovations needed in future scholarship. Findings reveal a proliferation
of large-scale empirical studies focused on male/female comparisons, often with little detail provided
on industry sector or sampling methods and with either a weak, or no feminist critique whatsoever.
We argue that future scholars must develop the methodological repertoire to engage with post-
structural feminist approaches; this may require a radical move towards more innovative, in-depth
qualitative methodologies such as life histories, case studies or discourse analysis.

Keywords
entrepreneurship, feminist theory, gender, methodology, review

Introduction
Notwithstanding earlier work by Schwartz (1976), not until the 1980s did research articles on
women’s entrepreneurship begin to appear. Since then, over a period of 30 years, research on the
area of gender and entrepreneurship1 has shifted from purely descriptive explorations, devoid of
theoretical focus, towards a clear effort to embed research within highly informed conceptual
frameworks. As a consequence, early analyses of women’s entrepreneurship have moved away
from a ‘gender as a variable’ (GAV) approach (Cromie, 1987) towards those adopting a focus on

*This article was originally submitted to a proposed 30 year review special issue of the ISBJ.

Corresponding author:
Colette Henry, UiT - The Arctic University of Norway, NO-9037, Tromsø, Norway.
Email: [email protected]

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2 International Small Business Journal 

‘gender as an influence’ (Marlow, 2002). More recently, studies have incorporated post-structural
critical evaluations of entrepreneurial discourses to demonstrate the profoundly gendered nature of
entrepreneurship (Ahl, 2006; Bruni et al., 2004a, 2004b; Ogbor, 2000). While early studies equated
gender with sex, post-structuralist studies use a more apposite definition of the word gender,
namely, ‘social practices and representations associated with femininity or masculinity’ (Ahl,
2007a: 544). By using the latter definition, research analyses both the social and material implica-
tions of gender, often referred to as studying the ‘gender order’.
Despite this shift towards feminist critiques of entrepreneurship, the literature continues to
report studies that merely compare men and women, with little or no attention paid to constructions
of gender. Furthermore, a number of methodological weaknesses have been noted, including small
sample sizes, an over-reliance on cross-sectional designs, the use of inappropriate or gender-biased
measures or the inclusion of female–male comparative studies in which women’s subordinate role
is consistently highlighted (De Bruin et al., 2007). Indeed, as articulated by Ahl (2006), some
accepted research practices in women’s entrepreneurship simply serve to recreate such subordina-
tion, so restricting field development. Thus, our starting point in this article is that this observed
shift in the conceptualisation of gender and entrepreneurship needs to be matched with an appro-
priate shift in methodological approaches.
To support our argument, we conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) of extant gender and
entrepreneurship literature. Our two key research questions centre on identifying methodological
trends in the field of gender and entrepreneurship and determining the type of methodological
innovations needed in future scholarship. By critiquing extant methodological approaches, we aim
to build on and extend existing gender and entrepreneurship reviews which, to date, have largely
adopted a thematic focus (Carter et al., 2001; Carter and Shaw, 2006), categorised the nature and
level of research contribution (De Bruin et al., 2007), plotted changing perspectives (Henry and
Marlow, 2014) or broadly mapped the development and status of the field (Neergaard et al., 2011).
While, admittedly, the number of papers upon which such reviews have drawn has increased over
the years and the scope of their related search criteria has broadened beyond top-tier journals or
purely academic sources, extant reviews are hardly exhaustive, contain no more than a fraction of
the available literature and demonstrate little evidence of engagement with feminist analyses
(Neergaard et al., 2011). In particular, there is no review dedicated to a focused discussion of
research methodology.
Reflecting the recent 30 year anniversary of the International Small Business Journal (ISBJ) in
2012, our SLR (Denyer and Neely, 2004; Pittaway and Cope, 2007) covers relevant literature pub-
lished during the period 1983–2012. The remainder of this article is structured as follows: the next
section considers the research context for the study and discusses extant reviews in the field. Our
methodological approach is then explained followed by the findings from our SLR, structured
according to each discrete decade. The subsequent section discusses and qualitatively critiques the
findings, providing examples of the types of methodological innovations required for future schol-
arship. Finally, conclusions are drawn, and avenues for future research are identified.

Research context: reviews of gender in entrepreneurship research

As articulated by Ahl (2006), extant research on female entrepreneurship has often been criticised
for using male-gendered measuring instruments and lacking in explicit feminist analysis. Her com-
prehensive discourse analysis of 81 articles published over almost two decades (1982–2000) high-
lights the inadvertent reinforcement of women’s subordination to men in the context of the
entrepreneurial endeavour. Of specific relevance to the discussion here are Ahl’s findings in rela-
tion to methodological approaches. Cross-sectional surveys and structured questionnaires

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Henry et al. 3

predominate, with purposive, random, census and convenience sampling methods employed.
Many of the empirical studies within the review period suffered from poor, or un-stated, response
rates, with only descriptive analyses being employed in at least one-third of the papers. Advanced
statistical analysis such as correlations, regressions and use of logit models only served to highlight
the search for assumed differences rather than assumed similarities between male and female entre-
preneurs. These methods could in turn, be used to explain differences in firm size, growth or per-
formance rates. Consequently, such methodological approaches can be claimed to be in themselves
discriminatory (Ahl, 2006: 608; De Bruin et al., 2007). Such critique has created the impetus for
this article and informs our research design. The next section of this article discusses a selection of
relevant reviews conducted over the last 30 years, highlighting their main findings and identifying
the unique contribution of the present review.

Main discourses in reviews over 30 years

Despite the relative newness of the field, reviews of the gender and entrepreneurship literature do
exist. Jennings and Brush (2013) identify 30 such articles published in journals, books, reports and
conference proceedings between 1986 and 2012. However, of these, we note that only 11 are full
research papers published in academic journals, and of these, only five appear to adopt a systematic
approach. Most reviews simply highlight the under-representation of female entrepreneurs or sum-
marise/categorise key topics, approaches and findings in the literature. Furthermore, only a very
small number of narrative-based reviews offer in-depth critique of extant research, and, unlike our
review, none focuses exclusively, or to any substantive degree, on methodology, nor do any of the
reviews seek to explore the relationship between the (feminist) perspective adopted and investiga-
tive approach employed.
One of the earliest reviews is by Bowen and Hisrich (1986), who draw on Sonnenfeld and
Kotter to develop a comprehensive career model of women’s entrepreneurial behaviour. Whilst
not a systematic review nor one designed to focus on methodology, their article does identify a
number of methodological weaknesses evident in previous studies, namely, small samples that are
either limited to one geographical area or to a single industry, small numbers of female entrepre- Indus
neurs in study samples and weak instruments to measure personality variables. Another review by tria
Stevenson (1986) explores whether sex-based differences are potentially due to structural rather
than gender factors. Her review touches on methodology by suggesting that a male construction of
entrepreneurship is translated into questionnaires and then superimposed on women thus, missing
any potential difference between the male/female entrepreneurial endeavour. Similarly, Birley’s
(1989) review, adopting a UK perspective, rejects essentialism and makes the case for contextual-
ism by suggesting that the growth of women-owned businesses is a reflection of changes in society
and that women entrepreneur profiles will change accordingly. Collectively, these two reviews
highlight the gendered nature of entrepreneurship research and lay the foundation for research on
external social and contextual influences on women’s entrepreneurship.
In the 1990s, Stevenson (1990) argued that research on women’s entrepreneurship is flawed – a
perspective that is of particular relevance to our article. Drawing on her 1986 article, Stevenson
highlights how women are excluded, how male-gendered measuring instruments are consistently
employed (thus, women are bound to appear insufficient or inadequate) and how surveys make
little attempt to ‘discover’ the world of the female entrepreneur. She calls for in-depth, qualitative
interviews and an explicit feminist agenda – an argument supported by Moore (1990), who notes
the need for a common definition, a solid statistical research base, better methods and more robust
analyses.

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4 International Small Business Journal 

In contrast to the above, Brush (1992) reviews extant female entrepreneurship scholarship with
the somewhat essentialist idea that women are ‘different’, that is, caring and relational. She adopts
an integrative perspective, suggesting that women are more focused on relationships and view their
businesses as interconnected systems of relationships rather than separate economic units in the
social world. Consistent with earlier reviews, Brush (1992) notes that extant research is largely
descriptive and atheoretical, dominated by cross-sectional surveys and small convenience samples.
Brush posits that one reason why research has not found conclusive evidence of gender differences
is because it has used measuring instruments developed for male entrepreneurs. Her critique, there-
fore, mirrors Stevenson’s, but as they adopt different feminist positions, they also reach very dif-
ferent conclusions in relation to the impact of improved methodological approaches.
In moving to the new millennium, Gundry et al. (2002) review a range of study types and sizes,
integrating their findings cross-culturally in order to address a number of questions about female
entrepreneurs. While not focusing to any meaningful degree on methodology, their review does
offer some valuable suggestions for future research studies, suggesting that researchers should
endeavour to include comparisons among sectors; consider the influence of factors such as indus-
try, family, culture and goal orientation and provide a greater focus on women entrepreneurs in
emerging capital markets around the world (pp. 81–83), the latter paving the way for research on
female entrepreneurship in developing economies.
A break-through in terms of putting qualitative research methods firmly on the agenda came in
2004 with Narrative and Discursive Approaches in Entrepreneurship (Hjorth and Steyaert) and
again in 2007 with the Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Entrepreneurship (Neergaard
and Ulhøi, 2007). In the former, gender is discussed in the chapters by Campbell (2004), Foss
(2004) and Petterson (2004). In the latter, critical realism, entrepreneurship as lived experience,
ethnographic methodology, grounded theory, action research, semiotics, media discourse and dis-
course analysis are applied to entrepreneurship. Thus, the invited scholars in Neergaard and Ulhøi’s
Handbook contribute to the institutionalisation of qualitative methods in the field. Interestingly, an
entire chapter is devoted to the problems of getting qualitative methods published in the field of
entrepreneurship (Smith and Anderson, 2007). Both Hjorth and Steyaert’s (2004) and Neergaard
and Ulhøi’s (2007) texts offer a variety of qualitative methods that can be used to take context into
account when studying entrepreneurship as a socially embedded phenomena. Such work has served
to inspire gender research, as evidenced by, for example, contributions within the special issue
‘Institutional perspectives on entrepreneurship and gender’ in the International Journal of Gender
and Entrepreneurship (IJGE) (Ahl and Nelson, 2010).2
In their review, Brush et al. (2009) conduct a SLR on female entrepreneurship papers published
between 1996 and 2006 in two top-tier entrepreneurship journals.3 Whilst theirs is quite a limited
review covering only 37 papers in total, of specific relevance to this article are their findings relat-
ing to methodological weaknesses. Echoing Stevenson (1986) and Birley (1989), the authors note
that many research approaches ignore the institutional aspects of entrepreneurship, such as family
embeddedness or social or cultural norms. Rather, they promote the use of mixed and less accepted
methods, such as content and discourse analysis, to unravel complex issues and to draw a more
comprehensive picture of women’s entrepreneurship (p. 16). Furthermore, they criticise standard
research methods that ‘mechanistically introduce the sex of entrepreneurs as a variable, or merely
replicate studies of male entrepreneurs in order to research female entrepreneurship’ (p. 10).
Assessing the extent to which feminist theories underpin research on women’s entrepreneur-
ship, Neergaard et al.’s (2011) comprehensive review categorises 367 articles within three feminist
schools of thought. This analytical framework, which partly informs our discussion, focuses on
how gender is conceptualised and considers whether there has been a development in the employ-
ment of such conceptualisation over time. To facilitate comparison, we use the commonly accepted

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Henry et al. 5

categorisation of the historical development of feminist thought in three waves (Calás and Smircich,
1996; Harding, 1987; Weedon, 1999) and adopt the labels used by Neergaard et al. (2011), namely,
GAV, feminist standpoint theory (FST) and post-structural feminism (PSF). GAV (or feminist
empiricism) simply adds women to the research agenda, in order to make women’s presence and
conditions visible. The word gender is used as an equivalent to sex and is not further problema-
tised. A feminist standpoint perspective assumes that women have unique experiences as women
and thus, the preferential right of interpretation regarding knowledge about women and their con-
ditions. Research using this perspective, however, often assumes essential differences between
men and women, commonly sorting women as the caring, ethical and relationally oriented ones
(Chodorow, 1999; Gilligan, 1982). A post-structural perspective builds on the assumption that
gender is socially and culturally constituted.
There is no essence to what a man or a woman is (besides the reproductive functions), so con-
structions of gender may vary over time, between contexts and between as well as within sexes.
The purpose of studying constructions of gender is that they have social effects. So, for example,
how do social constructions of women as being better suited to caring responsibilities than men
affect men’s and women’s career choices? (Ahl, 2007b). Our article essentially extends this
approach by exploring the relationship between changing trends in conceptualisation and meth-
odological approach adopted.
We are mindful that a categorisation in three waves is a simplification; feminist theories with
different theoretical roots (such as psychoanalytical feminism and standpoint feminism or different
strands of post-structuralist theory) are grouped into the same category. We also acknowledge that
alternative categorisations exist as noted by, for example, Calás et al. (2009) who group socialist
and post-structuralist theories into the same category. As a detailed discussion of feminist theories
is beyond the scope of this article, we refer readers to Feminist Politics and Human Nature (Jaggar,
1983), Feminist Theory (Tong, 2009) and the Handbook of Feminist Research (Hesse-Biber, 2012).
Sullivan and Meek (2012) review the research on gender and entrepreneurship between 1993
and 2010. The authors categorise their 60 articles according to Baron and Henry’s (2011) four-
stage process model4 to provide a novel perspective on how entrepreneurship unfolds for women.
Once again, while their review does not focus specifically on methodology, a cursory analysis of
their data reveals that more than two-thirds of the articles in their review adopt highly quantitative
approaches comprising (mainly large-scale) survey instruments; only two of their articles adopt
focus groups as their primary methodology, and three use interviews.
A strategic, albeit short, review by McAdam (2012) highlights complementary themes and con-
trasting strands running through emergent discourses on female entrepreneurship. Despite dealing
with only a handful of articles and limited to just one journal, her review serves to further demon-
strate the inadequacy of certain methodological approaches to researching female entrepreneur-
ship. She calls for a more critical utilisation of qualitative data informed by feminist analyses and
cautions against the consideration of gender in isolation.
Finally, Jennings and Brush’s (2013) comprehensive and timely review contributes to extant
literature by critiquing the contribution of female entrepreneurship scholarship to the broader
entrepreneurship literature. Based on a review of some 600+ articles published between 1975 and
2012, they identify the manner in which the collected body of knowledge on female entrepreneur-
ship challenges mainstream theory, that is, by demonstrating that entrepreneurship is a gendered El
phenomenon, that entrepreneurship activity is embedded in families, that it can result from neces- feno
sity as well as opportunity and that entrepreneurs often pursue goals beyond economic gain. They meno
find that despite the recent proliferation of research articles on women’s entrepreneurship, the del E
proportion of such research published within top-tier journals has declined steadily since the mid–
encas
late 1990s. Furthermore, we note once again that among such research, none of the published
trado
en
famil
ia
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6 International Small Business Journal 

articles focuses on methodology. Thus, our review aims to fill this gap in extant scholarship. This
study identifies methodological trends in the field of gender and entrepreneurship and determines
the type of methodological innovations needed in future scholarship. In doing so, our core contri-
bution lies in identifying methodological strengths and weaknesses, as well as suggesting new
approaches that are potentially more suited to contemporary conceptualisations of the field.

Methodology
Approach
We employed a SLR for our study covering 30 years of research on gender and entrepreneurship
(see Table 1). SLRs are now well established as appropriate methodological approaches within the
field of entrepreneurship (Pittaway and Cope, 2007) and are especially useful where large volumes
of evidence over long time periods are involved, which is the case in our study.5 We also choose to
use the SLR as it has become recognised as an appropriate method for conducting reviews within
the field of female entrepreneurship (see, for example, Jennings and Brush, 2013; Neergaard et al.,
2011).
We focus only on empirically based papers and thus, exclude conceptual papers, pure literature
reviews or papers in which the gender/female entrepreneurship dimension was a peripheral ele-
ment of the study. Also, in contrast to Neergaard et al. (2011) and indeed others, in an effort to
focus our search from the outset, we chose not to conduct a general Boolean search across the
broad business literature; rather, we began by compiling a list of appropriate journals within which
to conduct our search. While admittedly this approach may have certain limitations, it meant that
our initial Boolean search within Business Source Complete generated hundreds rather than thou-
sands of hits. Further support for this more focused journal-led rather than broader literature-based
search approach can be found in the fact that our final journal listing included the same top-ranked
journals as those identified in previous reviews (see, for example, Jennings and Brush, 2013;
Neergaard et al., 2011), with any deliberate omissions explained.6 As illustrated in Table 2, a final
total of 335 papers across 18 journals covering three decades (1983–2012) were included. We rec-
ognise that the journals selected may have led to a particular representation of the field. For exam-
ple, by omitting sociological journals, more critical approaches – which are explicitly feminist in
their orientation, often institutionally based and theoretically more sophisticated – are not repre-
sented.7 Finally, by omitting books, several interesting qualitative studies are also not included
(see, for example, Carter et al., 2007; Lewis et al., in press).

Analysis
Drawing on Ahl (2002), a thematic reading guide was constructed by the authors, with an appropri-
ate coding system devised. The reading guide focused on the particular research topic under inves-
tigation in the articles, the gender perspective employed, the specific methodological approach
adopted, the nature of the empirics and the type of analysis conducted (see Table 3).
It was decided early on in the process to use a manual coding system because, consistent with
Neergaard et al. (2011), determining the particular feminist approach adopted in the articles ‘when
the feminist basis remained implicit rather than explicit’ was not ‘clear-cut’ (p. 8) and often required
additional reflection. It was important, however, for us to categorise the articles in this way because
gender perspective links directly to our core research questions in terms of identifying (and criti-
quing) methodological trends and determining the type of methodological innovations needed for
the field to move forward. Table 4 presents snippet samples of some of the evidence collected from

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Henry et al. 7

Table 1.  Stages in the SLR process.

Stage Description
1 A list of relevant journals in the field was constructed based on a combination of journals
identified in previous SLRsa and the authors’ own knowledge of the field.b
2 Those journals publishing fewer than 5 relevant papers during the period under review
were excluded, resulting in a final list of 18 journals.
3 Each member of the author team was allocated a discrete 10-year time period to search:
period 1 – 1983–1992; period 2 – 1993–2002; period 3 – 2003–2012.
4 Within-journal searches were conducted by means of a systematic Boolean
keyword search using the terms (woman OR women OR female OR gender) AND
(entrepreneurship OR entrepreneur OR enterprise OR business OR firm) in the title, key
words and abstract fields. As a cross-check, in some cases, content pages of each journal
issue/volume were examined to ensure no relevant paper was omitted/missed.
5 Resulting individual articles were then examined and exclusion criteria applied as follows:
calls-for-papers, book reviews, practitioner papers, conference reports, conceptual papers,
review articles and papers where the gender/female entrepreneurship dimension was
deemed to be a very insignificant component or by-product of the study. For the most
part, papers broadly relating to entrepreneurship education, where students’ attitudes
towards entrepreneurship were assessed or their perceived entrepreneurial self-efficacy
was measured with gender as a variable, were also excluded. Articles dealing with
women’s career progression in the workplace or their (entrepreneurial) leadership style as
(employed) managers were equally excluded.
6 Discussions between the authors throughout the process ensured that any further
potential exclusions were discussed and agreed. This resulted in a final sample of 335
papers to be included in the 30-year review period.
7 Papers were reviewed using a common thematic reading guide (see Table 3) developed by
the authors.

SLR: systematic literature review.

aSee, for example, Neergaard et al. (2011) and Jennings and Brush (2013), among others.
bAll three authors have been researching and publishing in the field for over 20 years; all are regular reviewers of leading

journals in the field, one is a journal editor and another an associate editor for relevant journals.

the SLR. The data were analysed according to three distinct decades, collated into three different
Excel spreadsheets and then combined into a master spreadsheet to identify longitudinal trends and
key correlations, the latter using SPSS. In addition, our analysis of the data also allowed us to cri-
tique the dominant themes emerging from our SLR and highlight how they contribute to and chal-
lenge extant debates.

Findings
Table 5 summarises some of the key trends we observed in our review across the three decades.
Research topics range from being mainly profile driven in the first decade to start-up processes,
networking, finance, motivation and performance. Indeed, performance becomes the dominant
topic in the 1990s, establishing an early quantitative and comparative frame for the field. While
sectorial focus relates mainly to services, retail, manufacturing and technology, surprisingly, in
several studies, sector is not specified. Geographical focus is dominated throughout by the ‘big
three’ regions (i.e. North America, United Kingdom and Australasia), but it is in the two most
recent decades where we see expansion to under-represented regions such as Africa, Asia and the Americ
Sub-Sahara. Methodological approaches are dominated throughout by quantitative methods, with a latina

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8 International Small Business Journal 

Table 2.  Journals included in the systematic literature review.

Journal titles (n = 18) Journal publishing Number of papers included in final

start date review

Period 1: Period 2: Period 3: Total

1983–1992 1993–2002 2003–2012
Entrepreneurship & Regional 1989 3 10 6 19
Development (ERD)
Entrepreneurship Theory and 1975 5 6 11 22
Practice (ETP)
Gender & Society (GS) 1987 1 – 4 5
Gender in Management (GM)a 1985 2 5 28 35
Gender, Work & Organization 1994 – 3 5 8
(GWO)
International Entrepreneurship and 2005 – – 19 19
Management Journal (IEMJ)
International Journal of 1995 – 5 14 19
Entrepreneurial Behaviour &
Research (IJEBR)
International Journal of 2000 – 4 14 18
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
(IJEI)
International Journal of Gender and 2009 – – 46 46
Entrepreneurship (IJGE)
International Small Business Journal 1982 5 3 9 17
(ISBJ)
Journal of Business Ethics (JBE) 1982 3 2 2 7
Journal of Business Venturing (JBV) 1986 6 11 6 23
Journal of Developmental 1996 – 5 9 14
Entrepreneurship (JDE)
Journal of Enterprising Culture (JEC) 1994 – 3 8 11
Journal of Small Business and 1994 – 1 6 7
Enterprise Development (JSBED)
Journal of Small Business 1962 13 16 4 33
Management (JSBM)
Small Business Economics (SBE) 1989 2 5 13 20
Venture Capital (VC) 1999 – 2 10 12
Totals 40 81 214 335

Source: Adapted from Neergaard et al. (2011: 19).

aPreviously, ‘Women in Management Review’ (1985–2007), then Gender in Management (GM) from 2008.

large-scale questionnaires and surveys overshadowing the few qualitative (i.e. life histories, case
or ethnographic based) studies that dare to challenge conventional methods. The overall notable
trend in using secondary data, large datasets and explanatory and descriptive designs in comparing
men and women entrepreneurs reinforces a static and acontextual view of gender and
entrepreneurship.
Figure 1 shows the trend in feminist perspectives adopted over our 30-year review period.
While the GAV approach is clearly dominant throughout, feminist standpoint perspectives gain
momentum from the 1990s. In the third period of our review (2003–2012), we see the emergence
of post-structural feminist perspectives, but this is paralleled with a trend in research that adopts no

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Henry et al. 9

Table 3.  Reading guide.

Category
  1. Article title
  2. Author(s)
  3. Year of publication
  4. Journal
  5. Research question/focus
  6. Feminist perspective?
  7. Methodological approach
   7a. Qualitative or quantitative?
   7b. Type
   7c. Measure
   7d. Data sources
   7e. Notable limitations?
  8. Analysis 
  9. Sample details
   9a. Type (unit)
   9b. Sampling method
   9c. Size
   9d. Response rate
   9e. Country
   9f. Sector
   9g. Comparison?
10. Key findings

particular feminist perspective and is overshadowed by a continued trend towards the GAV
approach.
The sections below delve further into the findings, providing qualitative insights into the domi-
nant trends in each of the discrete decades.

The early years (1983–1992)

In this first period, with the exception of a Swedish study by Holquist and Sundin (1990), we note
a decidedly Anglo-Saxon bias in published empirical research. This early ‘leadership’ of the field
by American/British academics signals, perhaps, that these countries were among the first to rec-
ognise the potential importance of women’s entrepreneurship to the economy. However, disap-
pointingly but not surprisingly, the papers in these early years are mostly descriptive in nature,
providing general demographic profiles of women’s business ownership. While such an approach
is clearly needed to lay the foundation for a new area of scholarship, it also serves to establish a
broadly quantitative perspective from the outset.
Women’s businesses in the studies we reviewed in this period are concentrated in feminine
gendered sectors such as retail, care and services, and their businesses are comparatively small.
While scholars attempt to explain this by comparing traits between men and women business own-
ers, they generally fail because they find, overall, that men and women entrepreneurs are very
much alike and that personal traits alone cannot explain choice of business sector or size. Indeed,
very little, if anything differs between men and women in the studies we reviewed; rather, one must

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 10

Table 4.  Snippet samples of evidence collected from the SLR.

Sample 1 Sample 2 Sample 3 Sample 4

Authors Rosa and Hamilton Fischer et al. Shabbar and di Gregorio Dautzenberg
Date 1994 1993 1996 2012
Journal ETP JBV JBV IJGE
Research question Structure of firm ownership/ Firm performance Start-up, goals and Profiling women-led
focus family motivation technology entrepreneurs
Feminist perspective? GAV FST GAV GAV
Methodological Quantitative Quantitative Qualitative Quantitative
approach
Measure Interviews Mail survey Personal interviews Survey
Data source(s) University of Sterling data Not specified Entrepreneurship Census
development programme
Unit of analysis Men and women business Men and women business owners Women business owners Men’s and women’s
owners businesses
Sampling method Random statistical quota; non- Systematic random Convenience Systematic random
representative
Sample size 600 908 33 5000+
Country United Kingdom United States Pakistan Germany
Sector focus Three sectors: textile, Cross-sector No specific focus Technology
business services and hotel/
catering
Key findings Co-ownership is more No differences in education or Freedom seekers were Confirms gender gap in

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common than sole ownership motivation; men outperform frustrated with previous technology sector; firm
for both sexes; both men and women on size and growth; situation; security seekers success is independent of
women are active manager; men’s increased ‘similar business’ needed income; satisfaction gender
men are more likely to own experience is positively related to seekers wanted to do
several businesses performance something on their own

ETP: Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice; JBV: Journal of Business Venturing; IJGE: International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship; GAV: gender as a variable; FST: feminist
standpoint theory.
International Small Business Journal 
 Table 5.  Key trends and characteristics of each period.

Period 1: 1983–1992 (n = 40 Period 2: 1993–2002 (n = 81 Period 3: 2003–2012 (n = 214 papers)
papers) papers)
Henry et al.

Topics Papers in this period are The dominant topic is Dominant topics are finance (33 studies),
predominately focused on ‘performance’ (20 studies), performance (19), motivation (17) and ethnic/
women entrepreneurs’ ‘profiles’ followed by start-up processes, minority (17). New topics emerging include
(i.e. reporting on women’s age, family and management practice. A contextual influences, training/education, family
marital status, family, education, few studies on attitudes/intentions and female entrepreneurial identity. Novel
experience, traits and attitudes). (4), networking (2), traits (2) and research areas such as social capital, incubation
entrepreneurship programmes (1). and social enterprise also begin to appear.
Sectors Mainly services and retail sectors, Mainly services/retail, but one- The majority of studies are not sector specific
with a few papers focusing third of the studies do not even nor do they state their sectorial focus. Where
on banking, construction, specify the sector or type of specified, the main sectorial focus is on
manufacturing or agriculture. business studied. services, manufacturing or technology.
Over half the studies use samples
that are either representative
of businesses in researchers’
geographical area or simply do
not specify a particular sector.
Regions Articles have an Anglo-Saxon bias, Papers are mainly US/UK focused Geographical focus is on the ‘big three’ (United
with more than half the studies (52), but some studies are States/United Kingdom/Australasia) (n = 108),
from the United States/United beginning to emerge from Europe, but geographical scope expands to include new
Kingdom. Studies are mostly Australasia, Middle East and Asia. regions such as Africa and the Sub-Sahara.
focused on one country. A small number of comparative
country studies are noted, that

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is, United Kingdom/France, New
Zealand/Norway/United Kingdom
and Finland/Scotland.
Methodological Mostly quantitative or mixed Mostly quantitative (64 papers), Mostly quantitative, some qualitative (73
approach methods, with only four with the balance being qualitative studies) and some using mixed methods (31).
studies being purely qualitative. or mixed methods based. Random
Convenience sampling (21), sampling (49), purposive (13),
random (6), purposeful (5). convenience (3).
 Type Mainly descriptive and Mainly explanatory, with some Mainly descriptive or explanatory.
exploratory in nature. descriptive and some exploratory.
11

(Continued)
 Table 5. (Continued) 12
Period 1: 1983–1992 (n = 40 Period 2: 1993–2002 (n = 81 Period 3: 2003–2012 (n = 214 papers)
papers) papers)
 Measure Mostly questionnaires or Mostly surveys, but more studies Mostly very large-scale surveys, but there is a
established tests (i.e. Jackson using personal or telephone notable increase in the use of interviews, case
Personality Inventory or Rokeach interviews. Seven studies adopt studies and ethnographic approaches.
Value Survey) and mail surveys, a longitudinal approach, but only
with some personal or telephone one study uses case method and
interviews. Some archival studies another uses observation.
(3), one experimental study
and four with personal semi-
structured or open interviews.
  Data sources Population/household surveys, tax A heavy reliance on secondary Studies mostly use reliable and established large
returns, local business registers, data sources such as census data datasets (i.e. GEM, ABS, PSED, national census).
Chambers of Commerce, and national databases.
programme participants,
newspaper articles, census
addresses and referrals. Several
studies offer no information on
data sources.
  Data analysis Findings are mostly analysed Mainly descriptive analysis, The use of larger datasets results in more
descriptively, and just under half but clearly more studies using sophisticated multivariate, factor or regression
use descriptive statistics. One- multivariate techniques, regression, analysis. A very small number of studies use
fifth of the studies use t-tests and logit models or factor analysis. qualitative software packages such as Nudist
correlations of chi-square tests. or NVivo - qualitative data analysis software
Only one study uses logit models. package (e.g. Hampton et al., 2011; Hodges,
2012; Kirkwood, 2009).

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 Unit of Mainly the individual entrepreneur Mainly men and women business Mainly men and women business owners. Some
analysis or business. Male/female owners. Male/female comparative studies focusing on women-only samples but
comparative studies predominate. studies predominate. offering within-group (women) comparisons.
  Sample size Mainly large convenience style Mostly random, extremely large Considerable range of sample sizes is noted, that
samples (i.e. 100+) that compare samples (in one case up to 40,000). is, from several thousands in a single country
men and women business owners. to a study using a 38 GEM country comparison
approach (e.g. Baughn et al., 2006). A few studies
using very small samples for in-depth qualitative
approaches (e.g. Datta and Gailey, 2012; Leung,
International Small Business Journal 

2011; Patterson and Mavin, 2009).

GEM: Global Entrepreneurship Monitor; ABS: Australian Bureau of Statistics; PSED: Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics.
Henry et al. 13

90

80

70

60
FST
Articles
50
GAV
40
NO
30 PSF
20

10

0
1982-1992 1993-2002 2003-2012

Figure 1.  Feminist perspective – time trend in number of articles.

FST: feminist standpoint theory; GAV: gender as a variable; PSF: post-structural feminism.

control for a host of contextual variables, and thereafter, there is seldom anything left that can be
‘explained’ by gender.
The overwhelming majority of papers in this period focus on the individual entrepreneur or
business, but completely neglect the role of contextual factors. Notable exceptions include Dumas rol de
(1992), who explores gendered role conflicts of daughters working as managers with their fathers
famili
in family firms, and Loscocco and Robinson (1991), who find that women are restricted due to a
gendered labour market and unequally shared family responsibilities. Furthermore, Loscocco and a
Robinson conclude that women’s subordination is reproduced in the business arena, illustrating
that business ownership is not a vehicle for upward mobility. While research in this period is char-
acterised by its almost exclusive adoption of a GAV approach (see Figure 1), we did note one
particular article that had an explicit liberal feminist perspective addressing discrimination
(Loscocco and Robinson, 1991). Other than that, any feminist agenda is largely hidden.
The majority of the studies in this period present their findings in descriptive form, but we did
note some (n = 12) that use multivariate analysis, factor analysis or logit models. The use of such
sophisticated statistical and mathematical models may seem impressive, but in some cases could
simply be regarded as ‘garbage in, garbage out’, that is, regardless of the level of sophistication,
when one tries to explain something by using the sex of the business owner, one is essentially
adopting a biased perspective from the outset. A notable exception to the dominant quantitative
approach is the study by Dumas (1992), which demonstrates how a qualitative approach may be
productively used to study gendering processes.
We conclude that this early work on women’s entrepreneurship can be categorised as mainly
descriptive, exploratory, adopting a GAV approach and, for the most part, lacking in knowledge
about feminist theory and gender. However, we acknowledge that any field of scholarship needs to
start somewhere, providing a foundation upon which the academy can build.

The development of the field (1993–2002)

Studies in this second period are dominated by a focus on ‘performance’, and here, we note a num-
ber of different approaches. For example, Lerner et al. (1997), in their study of Israeli women

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14 International Small Business Journal 

entrepreneurs, suggest that individual factors affect performance differently as a consequence of

variations in social structures, work, organised social life and family. They call for future research
to explore the extent to which this is the case. Implicitly, this suggests the need to analyse gender
as embedded in a context. Du Rietz and Henrekson’s (2000) study finds that female entrepreneurs
tend to be less successful than their male counterparts in terms of conventional economic perfor-
mance measures when the data are examined at the most aggregate level. However, a more detailed
analysis reveals that with a large number of controls, female underperformance disappears for Valor
three out of four variables, with sales being the only exception. Their conclusion is that the female del
underperformance hypothesis is only true if the economic performance of female entrepreneurs is desemp
inferior to the economic performance of their male counterparts with identical preferences. Again,
eño y la
this calls for researchers to move beyond the GAV approach when investigating business
performance. perspec
Another noteworthy study in this period is that of Lerner and Almor (2002) who adopt a femi- tiva
nist perspective to explore the management practices and strategies of 220 women-owned life-style privileg
ventures. They argue that when establishing a business, women carry with them – from their pre- iada de
entrepreneurial careers – intangible organisational resources, such as previous experience and
genero
familiarity with the industry. Their findings demonstrate that proactiveness in the form of strategic
planning is a central capability that correlates strongly with performance measures. However, como
when using a women-only sample, the methodological approach makes it difficult to support the variable
notion that women carry more intangible resources than men. This is further confirmed by Chell
and Baines (1998), who also adopt a feminist perspective to explore performance. Their study
shows no significant difference between the performance of sole male and sole female business
owners, a clear underperformance of spouse-owned businesses and no support for the claim that
women have an integrated approach to their business and personal lives (as opposed to men). This
leaves little support for the feminist standpoint perspective.
Research in this period continues to treat gender as an independent variable when explaining
performance, access to capital, start-up processes, survival and so on. The pattern in which research
topics are treated is reflected in the trend in perspective adopted, with over half of the studies (48)
adopting a GAV approach, 28 taking a feminist standpoint approach and only two adopting a post-
structural approach. Thus, it seems that gender and entrepreneurship research in these developing
years continues to be characterised by explaining differences and similarities between male and
female entrepreneurs. Furthermore, when using FST (often implicit), there is a tendency to stereo-
type women as being inherently different to men. Clearly, entrepreneurship research in this decade
has still not moved towards PSF.
Methodological approaches in this period are still very conventional in nature, focused on
counting measurable items for the purpose of determining whether or not female entrepreneurs
differ from their male counterparts. The fact that we found only one case study and one observation
study further reinforces the acontextual nature of the research being conducted. The analytical
methods employed in these studies support this claim, leading us to conclude that although femi-
nist standpoint/feminist liberal approaches have clearly expanded since the 1980s, and both the
range of topics and geographical topics have broadened, the 1993–2002 research period is, overall,
methodologically unsophisticated.

Growth in female entrepreneurship research (2003–2012)

The new millennium witnessed a significant growth in the number of published empirical studies
on women’s entrepreneurship, with a notable expansion into emerging economies and those regions
previously (relatively) under-represented in the field, that is, Africa, Asia, the Sub-Sahara and

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Henry et al. 15

Middle East, coupled with a new focus on context. For example, we found published empirical
work on Bulgaria (Manolova et al., 2007), Lebanon (Jamali, 2009), Iran (Javadian and Singh,
2012), Jordan (Al-Dajani and Marlow, 2010) and Afghanistan (Holmen et al., 2011). Collectively,
such studies highlight the complexity of the female entrepreneurship experience in particular con-
texts and illustrate the influence of specific cultural, legislative and economic frameworks on
women’s entrepreneurial endeavours. A notable example is the study by Javadian and Singh (2012),
which considers women’s entrepreneurship in Iran and finds that the challenges created by nega-
tive stereotypes and traditions of Iranian society are among the main barriers that women had to
overcome. In such circumstances, it was those women with high levels of self-efficacy and risk-
taking who succeeded in their entrepreneurial endeavours. The importance of family is highlighted
in Al-Dajani and Marlow’s (2010) Jordan study, where home-based activities of women entrepre-
neurs in the embroidery trade are constructed around the preservation of the family form. Such
studies – conducted, interestingly, outside the ‘big three’ setting – contribute to the female entre-
preneurship discourse not only by demonstrating how women’s entrepreneurial experiences can
differ from country to country but also by highlighting the often over-looked data-gathering diffi-
culties associated with conducting research in less-advanced economies.
Consistent with the previous decade, ‘performance’ is again highly topical, but here it expands
in scope to explore performance in relation to networking activity (Watson, 2012), entrepreneurial
orientation (Tan, 2008), risk (Watson and Robinson, 2003), entrepreneurial capital (Shaw et al.,
2009) and new venture growth (Capelleras and Rabetino, 2008). Disappointingly, the male/female
comparative element remains, with both male and female business owners being surveyed and dif-
ferences highlighted. Studies focusing on contextual/institutional influences and family gain
momentum, signalling much greater acknowledgement of the highly gendered nature of entrepre-
neurship. We also begin to see the emergence of novel research areas, as demonstrated in the study
by Datta and Gailey (2012), which explores women’s experiences of social enterprise in India and
demonstrates their growing engagement with the phenomenon.
There is a notable shift towards PSF as the main theoretical approach, albeit often implicit.
Despite the observed increase in feminist perspective adopted by researchers in this period, quan-
titative methods designed to platform male–female differences predominate. A comparative male/
female analytical framework prevails, with only a small number of studies focusing solely on
women-only samples and offering within-group (women) comparisons. Exceptions include studies
by Struder (2003), Rehman and Roomi (2012) and Eversole (2004) who use ethnography, observa-
tions or case approaches.
With the exception of only a few studies (see, for example, Millman and Martin, 2007 (food);
Al-Dajani and Marlow, 2010 (embroidery); Bensemann and Hall, 2010 (tourism); Dodd, 2012
(creative industries)), the majority of research articles in this growth period are not sector specific.
We conclude that the notable shift towards a post-structural feminist perspective, expansion of
geographical coverage, exploration of novel research areas and a stronger emphasis on context that
collectively characterises this period demonstrate at least some attempt to understand the complex-
ity of women’s entrepreneurship.
Taking a holistic view, the findings of our SLR demonstrate a recent and significant prolifera-
tion of female entrepreneurship empirical research, as indicated by the fact that 214 (64%) of our
335 articles were published between 2003 and 2012 (see Table 2). Furthermore, 40% of our selected
articles were published within the last five years alone, suggesting that gender has now become a
legitimate area of scholarly inquiry within the entrepreneurship field. However, it must be recog-
nised that only a relatively small percentage of such scholarship is being published in the higher
tiered journals,8 a trend which, in itself, has the potential to significantly restrict the future develop-
ment of the field. Indeed, in revisiting Table 2, we can see that a total of 94 papers (over our 30-year

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16 International Small Business Journal 

review period) were published in the four gender-oriented journals (i.e. Gender & Society (GS),
Gender in Management (GM), Gender, Work & Organization (GWO) and IJGE), representing just
under one-third of the 335 articles included in our SLR. Of course, given the particular focus of
these four journals, such concentration is not entirely surprising. However, what is perhaps of some
concern is that outside of the gender-oriented journals, publication of female entrepreneurship
scholarship appears to be restricted to the lower ranked journals. This is particularly evident in the
third decade of our review where, despite the proliferation of female entrepreneurship publications,
less than 8% (n = 17) of the articles we reviewed were published in Entrepreneurship Theory and
Practice (ETP) or Journal of Business Venturing (JBV). This clearly signals a ghettoisation of
female entrepreneurship scholarship, which if left unchecked could significantly damage the pro-
gression of the field, discouraging future researchers.

Discussion: the need for methodological innovations

Our aim in this article was to identify methodological trends in the field of gender and entrepre-
neurship research and to determine the type of methodological innovations needed to advance
future scholarship. Our starting point was based on the assumption that there has been a shift in the
conceptualisation of gender within the female entrepreneurship literature, with scholars moving
away from a ‘GAV’ towards a ‘gender as performed’ perspective. Having demonstrated that such a
shift has indeed occurred (albeit quite recently), we then sought to determine the extent to which
this shift has been matched by relevant and appropriate investigative approaches. Overall, we
found that such approaches were lacking. To support our argument, we draw on a framework origi-
nally developed by Ahl (2002: 181) and adapt it to further analyse our findings, highlighting the
extent of the problem (see Figure 2).

Individualist focus and objectivist epistemologies tend to reify female subordination

The first two quadrants in Figure 2 represent research with an objectivist epistemology, focusing
either on the individual or on context. Both sorts of studies tend to produce static pictures. Ahl
(2002) noted in her overview of research between 1981 and 2002 that extant scholarship was
largely positioned in the first quadrant, which this review confirms. The focus was on individual
women and their businesses, with studies making essentialist assumptions of gender, adopting a

Focus on the individual Focus on context

Objectivist 1 2
epistemology Individualist focus and More factors.
   essentialist assumptions. Contingency studies.
Comparative studies.
Constructionist 3 4
epistemology Studies of how women Studies of how social orders
   entrepreneurs construct their are gendered.
lives and their businesses, how Studies of the mechanisms by
they “do gender.” which this gendering is
reconstructed.

Figure 2.  Approaches to researching women’s entrepreneurship.

Source: Adapted from Ahl (2002: 181).

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Henry et al. 17

‘GAV’ approach and favouring male–female comparisons. Methodologies aptly followed suit. The
findings from our review support this, with the methodologies in the early years being clearly
characterised by quantitative approaches; only 10% of studies adopted purely qualitative
approaches. This trend does not really change in the developing years, where our data reveal that
64 of the 81 papers reviewed adopt a quantitative approach. While this trend is further sustained
into the growth years, it is here that we begin to see such approaches being challenged, with a clear
move towards more qualitative, mixed methods and other novel approaches. Despite such studies,
our review has demonstrated that comparative male/female frameworks prevail, with little by way
of women-only samples or within-group comparisons.
We noted that efforts to produce reliable, large-scale, robust research were often off-set by an
inherent male/female comparative framework embedded in the research design and further high-
lighted in the analysis of findings. The problem is, as has been discussed throughout this article,
that this tends to reify female subordination. Whether using a ‘GAV’ approach or FST, essentialist
assumptions of gender prevail, and contextual factors affecting women’s life situation are often
ignored. Research will therefore, inadvertently blame women for any shortcomings alleged in their
entrepreneurial endeavours.

Including context: spotlighting conditions not traits.

As Ahl (2002) suggested, and many others have since argued, context does matter (Brush et al., Para
2009; De Bruin et al., 2007; Welter, 2011). One need not necessarily adopt a constructionist epis-
temology to give a fuller and fairer picture of women’s entrepreneurship. Indeed, contingency and
nuestr
comparative studies that include contextual factors such as industry sector, family policies, legisla- a
tive or cultural differences and so on and that use large statistical databases and quantitative analy- argum
sis are indeed helpful. Longitudinal studies of contextual factors that take the same picture at entaci
regular intervals over an extended time period and compare changes over time will also give a on de
much better understanding of the conditions for women’s entrepreneurship. Including context
means that any shortcomings alleged attributed to women, via the individualist approach discussed
la
above, can be explained by differences in contextual factors, such as access to capital, family poli- epitem
cies, access to child care, welfare state systems, cultural or legislative restrictions and so on. We ologia
did observe some such studies, particularly in the third period of our review (e.g. Baughn et al., adopta
2006; Terell and Troilo, 2010; Verheul et al., 2006) that could be placed in the second quadrant of da
Figure 2, but so far, they are few and far between. The most impressive such study we have come
across to date is published in book format (Arum and Müller, 2004), indicating that complex stud-
ies including multi-country, large datasets may simply not fit rigid journal formats.

A shift to constructionist epistemology is necessary to study gender as a process

If one wishes to study gender (and not sex), as the relational, processual or performative concept
it is defined (Ahl, 2007b), a post-structuralist feminist and constructionist epistemology is neces-
sary. Gender doing (West and Zimmerman, 1987, 2009) can hardly be studied with the static,
quantitative approaches that dominate the field. As already highlighted above, the third period in
our review did feature a number of studies adopting a post-structuralist approach (quadrants 3 and
4 in Figure 2), and the methods they used followed suit, that is, life histories, narrative analysis,
in-depth case studies, ethnographic studies, phenomenological approaches with in-depth inter-
views or discourse analyses. For example, in our review, we found evidence of mainstream meth-
odologies being innovatively challenged in a study by Datta and Gailey (2012), who adopt a novel
persuasive case-based approach to explore a women-owned co-operative social enterprise.

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18 International Small Business Journal 

Adopting a post-structural feminist approach, the qualitative and exploratory nature of the study
helps highlight how women in rural India are empowered through social enterprise endeavours.
The study by Struder (2003) provides another example of methodological innovation. Here, the
author combines ethnographic and case approaches to demonstrate the extent of the frustration
felt by Turkish women entrepreneurs in London as they struggle with their multi-dimensional
roles as guardians of Turkish culture, mothers and entrepreneurs (for other examples, see
Achtenhagen and Welter, 2011; Datta and Gailey, 2012; Eversole, 2004; Ezzedeen and Zikic,
2012; Patterson and Mavin, 2009; Struder, 2003).
However, it is Ahl’s (2007b) study that presents one of the strongest innovative challenges to
traditional methodological approaches in female entrepreneurship research. Here, a single case
study approach based on a teaching case of a toy store venture is employed to platform the gen-
dered nature of teaching cases (and, presumably, their potential negative influence) in entrepre-
neurship. Using a narrative analysis, Ahl demonstrates how such teaching cases reproduce
discriminatory gender relations, essentially teaching women that there is no place for them in busi-
ness. This is precisely the sort of methodological innovation needed in future female entrepreneur-
ship scholarship. Indeed, the motivation for turning to such methods is captured succinctly by Hill
et al. (2006):

Our methodological approach in this paper moves away from this problematic comparative research
design, and its assumptions that better research design, more appropriate measures and more relevant
research questions will ‘uncover’ the holy grail of gender-based differences in entrepreneurial practice. In
so doing, we reject the conventional and commonplace assumptions of much contemporary gender and
entrepreneurship research, which infers female subordination through the adoption of androcentric norms.
(p. 159)

However, such studies are still in the minority, and, with few exceptions, most have been pub- Journa
lished in the niche and still relatively new IJGE. We see three possible obstacles for a proliferation l para
of post-structuralist studies that must be addressed. First, conducting such research requires that public
the researcher is able to question assumed constructions of gender, which is not easy. The stance ar
in women’s entrepreneurship research that women are inherently more ethical and caring (e.g.
Gilligan, 1982; Moore, 1990; Moore and Buttner, 1997) is a telltale sign. Second, studying gender
doing (West and Zimmerman, 1987, 2009) is messy and laborious in comparison with database
studies. The amount of data that can be obtained in relation to the time and effort spent in gather-
ing them may be a deterrent. An example is Nilsson’s (1997) well-cited study of business counsel-
ling services directed towards female entrepreneurs in sparsely populated northern Sweden. She
spent many months travelling over vast distances to gather her data, often invited to conduct her
research at the kitchen tables of her interviewees. Third, interpretative studies that draw on unu-
sual data or employ unconventional methods may not make it past the journal editor’s desk as
easily as the more traditional quantitative and comparative studies in which procedures are well
known and accepted. They are somehow seen as more subjective, which in our view is a misun-
derstanding; all data rely on interpretation whether they are in number or word format. These
factors, as well as increasing demands on scholars to publish as many articles as possible in the
shortest time possible and in as many highly ranked journals as possible, are formidable obstacles.
However, they must be overcome if we are to study how gender is performed in the context of
women’s entrepreneurship; such knowledge is indeed valuable for anyone interested in challeng-
ing the gender order.

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Henry et al. 19

Conclusion
This article identifies methodological trends in the field of gender and entrepreneurship and deter-
mines the type of methodological innovations needed in future scholarship. To address these objec-
tives, we conducted a SLR of 335 empirically based research papers published in 18 journals
between 1983 and 2012. Despite our efforts to produce as comprehensive a review as possible, we
acknowledge the limitations of our work. First, we accept that some articles may have been inad-
vertently omitted; this is inevitable, given that we limited our review to a specific number of jour-
nals over a specific time period. Second, as with all reviews, we acknowledge the inherent
subjectivity of our critique, although efforts were made to counteract this through discussions
among the author team to cross-check perspectives and gain consensus.
Based on our review, we conclude that research on female entrepreneurship continues to be
characterised by explaining differences between male and female entrepreneurs. Indeed, our study
shows an overwhelming trend towards large-scale, quantitatively based/analyzed male–female
comparative research that avoids adopting sector-specific focus and within-group comparative
analysis. We believe that this is due to the fact that few entrepreneurship researchers are interested
in feminist epistemology. Disappointingly, the more advanced understanding of feminism wit-
para
nessed in sociology and the political science literature is not reflected in the field of entrepreneur- nuestra
ship. We suggest that the time has come to take a more critical view of how methodology in gender argume
research needs to expand in the future. ntacion
Haraway’s (1988) groundbreaking notion of going beyond universal perspectives and looking la
for partial perspectives and locatedness in gender research seem to have little influence on main-
stream entrepreneurship research. As Ahl and Marlow (2012) argue, the need for an epistemologi-
epstom
cal shift in entrepreneurship research is urgent. Current positivist epistemologies that focus on ologia
assumed, innate sex differences will inevitably reproduce the ‘othering’ of women, as well as the femeni
conception of women as the ones that need to be fixed in order to meet the norm. The irony of this na
being that the assumed male entrepreneurial norm of high-growth, high-performing ventures is
mythical (Storey, 2011). However, research methods and publishing standards must follow suit.
Standard, quantitative survey studies comparing static factors are ill-suited to studying gendering
processes; even if we detect some signs of an epistemological shift, albeit mostly in one journal,
the associated widening of research methods is still largely absent. For example, narratives are
almost never published in entrepreneurship journals. This reinforces our claim that scholars in
gender and entrepreneurship seem uninterested in auto-biographical research, which is increas-
ingly published in other areas within the entrepreneurship field.9 We conclude that in order to move
the field forward and harness an increased interest in feminist theory, entrepreneurship researchers
need to ground their methodology in feminist epistemology. If we want to learn how gender unfolds
in our field, we simply cannot continue to accept more of the same in the coming years.

Towards a future research agenda

The observed shift in feminist perspective towards that of FST and PSF needs to be matched with
more appropriate data collection and analysis methods. Essentially, large-scale quantitative studies
need to be balanced with qualitative insights that can really only be gained in any meaningful way
by abandoning male–female comparative studies and introducing sector, region and country explo-
rations that involve within-group comparisons. However, future scholars must be mindful of the
potential ‘trade-off’ in relation to sample robustness, reliability of data sources and analytical rig-
our. To counteract this, researchers need to lobby for improved and gender-disaggregated datasets
that are fully accessible. Where small sample sizes are unavoidable, data sources must be explained,

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20 International Small Business Journal 

sampling methods detailed and analytical techniques revealed. Triangulation also needs to be
applied to enhance findings. However, a shift towards qualitative methods alone, no matter how
rigorous, is not sufficient unless there is also an accompanying epistemological shift towards stud-
ying constructions of gender and gendering processes.
We argue that studies of gender in the entrepreneurship field lag behind those in other disci-
plines (i.e. sociology, political/organisational science), requiring scholars to develop the methodo-
logical repertoire to match the now expected post-structural feminist approach. This will require a
shift of a more radical kind – a move away from traditional, broad-sweeping quantitative approaches
towards more focused qualitative and innovative methodologies such as in-depth interviews, life
histories, case studies, ethnography or discourse analysis, as demonstrated by some of the exam-
ples of methodological innovations we highlighted in this article. We call on scholars to ‘be bolder’
and decidedly ‘more innovative’ in their research approaches, be more confident in their methodo-
logical choices and not be afraid to privilege context where required. Indeed, the need for contex-
tualised approaches seems inherent as our study demonstrates that the field has become somewhat
ghettoised in top-ranked/higher tiered journals, with the more novel and promising approaches to
gender reserved only for niche journals. While recent publications on contextualising theory-building
in entrepreneurship research (Welter, 2011; Zahra, 2007) offer some hope for the future, more work
is needed. Moving forward, the real challenge for future scholars is to delve deeper with a feminist
lens in order to unpick the complex nature of the female entrepreneurial endeavour so that it can be
better understood rather than unduly criticised.

Acknowledgements
The authors are extremely grateful to Geir Mikalsen at School of Business and Economics, UiT - The Arctic
University of Norway for his help with data analysis.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit
sectors.

Notes
1. While definitions of entrepreneurship often delimit the concept to the early stages of starting and grow-
ing a business or denote particular fast-growing businesses (Acs et al., 2009; Storey and Greene, 2010),
research on women’s entrepreneurship as well as entrepreneurship in general typically samples ‘business
owners’ (Carter et al., 2001; Lewis et al., in press). Sometimes the sample is limited to age or industry, or
development stage, but often this is not stated. For practical purposes, in our review, we therefore equate
entrepreneurship with business ownership.
2. International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, 2 (1).
3. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and Journal of Business Venturing (JBV).
4. Baron and Henry’s (2011) model includes the stages of motivation, opportunity recognition, resource
acquisition and success/performance.
5. For an in-depth discussion of the process involved in systematic literature reviews (SLRs), see, for exam-
ple, Denyer and Neely (2004).
6. We originally considered including relevant papers from dedicated female/women’s entrepreneurship
and gender tracks at leading conferences. However, we did not pursue this because (a) the sheer volume
of additional papers involved would have rendered it impossible to complete the review and analysis
within our timeframe, (b) not all of the papers were accessible electronically across all of the years
within our selected review period and (c) we quickly discovered that many of the papers presented at
these leading conferences were subsequently published in some of the journals we reviewed, introducing
a potential overlap/duplication issue that would have been difficult for us to quantify.

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Henry et al. 21

7. We refer interested readers to entrepreneurship articles in journals such as Work and Occupations
and Work, Employment and Society (see, for example, Jurik (1998) and Baines and Wheelock
(1998)).
8. For example, over the entire 30-year review period, we found that only 45 (13.4%) of our 335 papers
were published in JBV or Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP).
9. See, for example, Foss (2004) and Hjorth (2004).

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Author biographies
Colette Henry, PhD, FRSA, is Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship, School of Business and Economics,
UiT- The Arctic University of Norway, and Head of Department of Business Studies at Dundalk Institute of
Technology, Ireland. Colette is also Visiting Professor at Birmingham City University, and Editor of the
International Journal of Gender & Entrepreneurship. In addition to female entrepreneurship, her research
interests include entrepreneurship education and training, creative industries, veterinary business and social
enterprise.

Lene Foss, PhD,is Professor in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, School of Business and Economics, UiT -
The Arctic University of Norway, where she is also Programme Director of the Msc in Business Creation and
Entrepreneurship. Lene is currently Visiting Professor at Judge Business School at the University of
Cambridge, UK, and a Visiting Scholar at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA. She is
Associate Editor of the Journal of Small Business Management and Editorial Consultant for the International
Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship.

Helene Ahl, PhD, is Professor of Business Administration at Jönköping University, School of Education and
Communication. Her work focuses on constructions of gender, and draws on post-structuralist and discourse
analytical approaches. Currently she leads the research program Embla, which studies entrepreneurship and
economic growth from a feminist theory perspective (HYPERLINK “http://www.emblaresearch.se/”www.
emblaresearch.se). She is also the Research Director at Encell, the National Centre for Lifelong Learning at
Jönköping University, which focuses on adult learning at work and in educational settings.

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