Bounded Entrepreneurial Vitality: The Mixed Embeddedness of Female Entrepreneurship

Despite the recent increased interest in female entrepreneurs, attention has tended to focus on dynamic individuals and generic incentives without considering the roles of gender and place in entrepreneurship. In this article, we draw on the notion of mixed embeddedness to explore how time-and-place...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Economic geography 2015-10, Vol.91 (4), p.449-473
Main Authors: Langevang, Thilde, Gough, Katherine V., Yankson, Paul W. K., Owusu, George, Osei, Robert
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aspiration
Cognitive ability
Data collection
Economic analysis
Economic geography
Economic models
Embeddedness
Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship
female
Females
GEM
Gender
Gender differences
Geography
Ghana
Incentives
Men
Sex roles
Social psychology
Studies
Vulnerability
Women
Women owned businesses
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Despite the recent increased interest in female entrepreneurs, attention has tended to focus on dynamic individuals and generic incentives without considering the roles of gender and place in entrepreneurship. In this article, we draw on the notion of mixed embeddedness to explore how time-and-place-specific institutional contexts influence women's entrepreneurship. Drawing on primary data collected in Ghana, where exceptionally more women engage in entrepreneurial activities than men, we examine the scale and characteristics of female entrepreneurial activity, exploring the factors that account for this strong participation of women, and examine whether this high entrepreneurial rate is also reflected in their performance and growth aspirations. The findings reveal a disjuncture between, on the one hand, the vibrant entrepreneurial endeavors of Ghanaian women and positive societal attitudes toward female entrepreneurship and, on the other hand, female business activities characterized by vulnerability and relatively low achievement. The article shows how regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutional forces, which have been transformed over time by local and global processes and their interaction, are concomitantly propelling and impeding women's entrepreneurial activities. We propose that the study of female entrepreneurs within economic geography could be advanced by analyzing the differing effects of the complex, multiple, and shifting layers of institutional contexts in which they are embedded.
ISSN:0013-0095
1944-8287
DOI:10.1111/ecge.12092