Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Ettl, Kerstin
• Welter, Friederike

Titel

Gender, context and entrepreneurial learning

Ist Teil von

• International journal of gender and entrepreneurship, 2010-06, Vol.2 (2), p.108-129

Ort / Verlag

Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Erscheinungsjahr

2010

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Purpose - The purpose of the paper is to offer an insight into gender, context and entrepreneurial learning of women entrepreneurs in Germany.Design methodology approach - The paper explores entrepreneurial learning of women entrepreneurs both conceptually and empirically. Section 1 introduces a conceptual framework, which allows analysing entrepreneurial learning both from an individual gender-specific and from a context-based perspective. Empirically, the paper explores how women entrepreneurs acquire the (business-related) knowledge to start and grow an enterprise and the impact of regional, sector, family and social as well as macro environments in this regard. Findings are based on 31 in-depths interviews with women entrepreneurs and 23 interviews with key experts.Findings - It is found that the meso environment is more of an indirect influence; the macro and micro environments are strong influences on lives and decisions of women entrepreneurs, especially on their opportunity recognition. The business environment has both a direct and indirect influence.Practical implications - The results demonstrate an ongoing need for a contemporary image of women's entrepreneurship in Germany. The major challenge for policy-makers and support organizations therefore lies in propagating diverse entrepreneurial images and in incorporating the diversity of women's entrepreneurship and their specific learning approaches into policies and support offers.Originality value - The paper contributes a different and so far neglected perspective on entrepreneurial learning and opportunity recognition, drawing attention to the contextual influences and the embedding of cognitive processes.