ISSN 0798 1015

Vol. 40 (Issue 38) Year 2019. Page 27

Study of the incursion of women in the field of entrepreneurship

Estudio de la incursión de mujeres en el campo del emprendimiento

FEIJÓ-CUENCA, Nilba 1; NAVAJAS-ROMERO, Virginia 2 & CEULAR-VILLAMANDOS, Nuria 3

Received: 15/08/2019 • Approved: 30/10/2019 • Published 04/11/2019

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Methodology

3. Results

4. Conclusions

References

Appendix

1. Introduction

In a world of constant evolution, the concept regarding the participation of women in the corporate environment has acquired a different nuance (Alonso-Almeida, Perramon and Bagur-Femenias, 2017). Although the official figures indicate that the entrepreneurial activity of women is not yet comparable to that of men, her presence can be noted in the field of work and in the development of their own businesses (Patterson and Mavin, 2009). Specifically, female entrepreneurship alludes to the immersion of women in the business context (Anggadwita, Luturlean, Ramadani and Ratten, 2017; Klapper and Parker, 2011; Ramadani, 2015).  In this regard, women are highlighting in an environment that is traditionally assigned to men and that puts their active presence in the spotlight, not only in the business context but also in productive activities, whereas before they were generally invisible (Lewis, 2006).

If we pay attention to the changes reflected in the timeline, it shall be possible to discern the figure of women entrepreneurs, alongside important and historic work moments (Sola, Yamamichi and Romero, 2016). There is an evident transformation in the concept of their profile, where a fragile and insecure image transcends to one of better awareness of their abilities, entrepreneurial skills and social participation (Kirchler, Wagner and Buchleitner, 1996). The changes registered in a contextual way, with high psychosocial impact, have not been the products of coincidence; instead, they have been the products of constant female struggles motivated by the desire for work improvement, economic stabilization and family safety (Agarwal and Lenka, 2016).

Nowadays, even more women participate alongside their partners in activities that contribute to the family economy (Bowman, 2009; Kirkwood and Tootell, 2008). This approach adds value to the activities that traditionally have been done by women and are part of their nature, such as: maternity, raising children and taking care of the home (Guo and Werner, 2016; Ronsen, 2014). Today, these actions are attempted to be carried out as a team in terms of the couple, for the consolidation of the nuclear family (Hundley, 2000). It is important highlighting the fact that there are a large number of single-parent families where the woman leads, directs (Alonso-Almeida et al., 2017) and contributes to the sustainability and consolidation of the homes in an immeasurable way (Ronsen, 2014).

Science is not static; the continuous development of research enriches and allows for the expansion of this field of activity. This makes it possible to discover new possibilities with the use of information and to identify how key networks of contacts are formed, aimed at common scientific purposes. In perspective, the aim of this article is to examine the literary production regarding women and entrepreneurship, with a multi-disciplinary approach, given the social and economic connotation of the concept of gender in the business world (Bruni, Gherardi and Poggio, 2004b).

The general implied intention in this study is to produce representative results for academia, through the application of bibliometric analysis that allows for the assessment of scientific quality and the influence of the different works and sources registered or indexed in Web of Science (Albort - Moranta, Leal – Rodríguez, Fernández – Rodríguez and Ariza-Montes, 2017),  followed by a content analysis of the publications that agree with the H-Core of this field of research.

This article is organised in the following way: in section 2, a description of the methodology used, the sample choice and bibliometric characteristics are defined in terms of the studies carried out regarding women entrepreneurs (publications, authors and magazines). Section 3 presents the application of the H-Classics [4] methodology, completed using the H-Core [5] component, for the analysis of the resulting articles. Finally, in section 4, the conclusions are presented.

2.1. Bibliometric description

Nineteen years after the “entrepreneur” approach was analysed in the publications of Carlin (1956) and Sluiter (1956); the first research regarding female entrepreneurship began to appear through Bujra (1975) who connected its expression with a social phenomenon occurring in Nairobi at the beginning of the 20th century. In the following two decades, the literary production was derisory. However, the focus of attention of the articles was in the analysis of the characteristics of the women entrepreneur and the perceptions that are inherent to gender. It is from 1990 onwards when scientific production regarding female entrepreneurship begins to multiply, with a series of studies that until now have remained valid due to their level of impact, with authors such as Fischer, Reuber and Dyke (1993), Cliff (1998) and Buttner and Moore (1997).

Although there are numerous publications regarding female entrepreneurship, the bibliometric studies registered are few. The publications have an essential role in the research process because they allow for the measurement of evolution and progress in a specific area. The application of a bibliometric study gives researchers access to key information to expand the spectrum of knowledge towards the preparation of indicators, used to measure the influence of a researcher (Hirsch, 2005), such as the total number of publications, number of citations, the citation-articles relationship

To get a clearer perception of the literary evolution generated through the treatment of women as entrepreneurs, this document focuses its analysis on the publication of articles in high-impact magazines. The results shall allow for the contrast of the findings that other research could have generated and provide more support to the understanding and importance of these.

Three types of indicators are established to measure the existing publications: quantity, quality and structural (Cadavid-Higuita L., Awad, Cardona and Jaime, 2012). The amount aimed at measuring productivity in terms of the number of publications, the quality to measure the impact of a publication in relation to the number of citations; and the structural indicators that measure the existing connections among the different works and authors. While other related studies, such as those by Santos, Marques and Ferreira (2018), focus on structural indicators, this work covers the first types of indicators to measure which publications are the ones that involve in the field of the woman entrepreneur and are a guide for future research.

The bibliographic review done for the preparation of this article measures the impact of a combination of documents and highlights classic articles for this field of research, using the H-Classic approach, in addition to bibliometric analysis. In this way, it is possible to quantify scientific production through the mathematical and statistical methods used to study these tendencies.

The first phase of the bibliometric analysis identifies the appropriate database for the study, among an ensemble of available scientific databases. As a source of evidence, this study used the Thomson Reuters Web of Science (WOS) database, which is a multi-disciplinary scientific information platform with access to other databases and offers the most coverage of time for the indexed information.

The total amount of studies analysed consist of economic, management and business areas in WOS, during the 1975-2018 period, and the research was carried out in May 2018. The search sequence was defined by topic, in this case “woman” “entrepreneur” combined the terms mentioned in Table 1.

Table 1
Profile of information search

Source: Own preparation

Through the main search criteria, 1.510 documents were obtained. Criteria restriction was done to direct the selection towards the publication of documents regarding business, social, women studies, entrepreneurship, economy. With these 1017 preliminary results and to avoid the duplicity of observed titles, procedures, books, chapters, editorial material, conferences and other works; they were excluded from the search and it registered a total of 623 articles, as can be seen in table 2. Finally, to assure the relevance and the profile of the sample, every document was searched to see if it had the combination of the following terms “woman entrepreneur”, “woman entrepreneurship”, “female entrepreneur”, “female entrepreneurship”, “gender entrepreneur” & “gender entrepreneurship”; which, in the end, leaves us with 521 articles for the development of the analysis.

Table 2
Number of articles and
further types of documents

Source: Own preparation

The most common type of document among the classification registered in table 2 is the article, although the procedure documents and book chapters represent a considerable percentage. However, we stress that for the definition of the sample it only handled one-selection criteria, as there were titles registered in more than one category.

3.1. Documental analysis

The selection consists of 521 documents obtained as a sample, from 1975 until May 2018, with a total of 7,580 citations. The first publication regarding female entrepreneurship was done by Bujra (1975). In the selection of the 10 most cited articles, 25.6% of the citations are to be found; standing out among the authors with articles who registered the biggest connotation in the area, Cliff (1998), with the one called: “Does one size fit all? Exploring the relationship between attitudes towards growth, gender and business size”, whichregisters 3.5% of all the citations.

Table 3
Ranking 10 most
cited studies

Source: Own preparation

As for the evolution of the registered literary production, Graphic 1 illustrates the concentration of articles per year and number of citations. Between 1997 and 2013, a significant number of citations can be seen, with the biggest temporary upturn in the year 2007 and later in the year 2009. In contrast, the curve indicates an increase in the publications regarding female entrepreneurship during the years 2015, 2016 and 2017. However, the decline in the number of citations and publications observed is a product of the period of reduced exposure.

Graphic 1
Publications and
citations per year

Source: Own preparation

3.2. The most cited authors

From the 521 articles considered in the sample taken from Web of Science, the ranking of the 10 authors with the greatest number of publications regarding female entrepreneurship in indexed scientific magazines is established. From the 1,028 talents considered, the most productive author is S. Marlow, with 8 publications. None of the remaining authors have more than 5 articles. With the observation period being expansive and representative of the number of registered researchers, it is evident that the impulse for the generation of researchers in this scope or the articulation of true research corpus is in growing.

Table 4
Ranking of 10 authors with
the greatest publications

Source: Own preparation

Table 5, establishes a ranking of authors, according to the impact of their publications (estimated in number of citations), which shows, in contrast, a change in the positioning of the authors. Despite S. Marlow presenting a significant literary production, E. Buttner is the one who, with half of the publications, has been cited 428 times. A similar situation occurs in the case of authors such as J. Cliff, E. Fischer and R. Boden, who with just one publication have quite a considerable impact level (number of citations). It is worth mentioning that the citation patterns respond to the “classic author” category in this knowledge discipline, in cases such as that of J.Cliff, where a single publication leads to fourth place in the ranking.

Table 5
Ranking of 10 authors
by impact

Source: Own preparation

Topping the list of the 10 countries with the greatest number of titles registered in WOS is the United States, with a considerable index of publications (151), followed by England (58) and Spain (47). As this indicator is linked to the nationality and the country of origin of the authors, it constitutes a pattern to direct the interest that there is in North America and Europe to address and develop aspects that are inherent to the business context with the participation of women.

Graphic 2
Ranking of the 10 countries with
the greatest number of publications

Source: Own preparation

3.3. H-Classics Analysis

The H-Classic methodology, from the H index, systematises the search for classic citations for any field of research (Martínez, Herrera, Lópe-Gijón and Herrera-Videma, 2014) to determine the works considered “classics” in this discipline. Due to the influence that they have had in the articulation of new research about women entrepreneurs, this methodology was applied to the 521 articles selected.

With a way of identifying the cited documents with more frequency in the development of a discipline, Garfield (1977) initially defined the concept of classic citations in this way: “classics” are those documents which are recognised as having a marked visibility and interest, in a specific discipline of knowledge”. The identification process of citation classics in a research area through the H-Classics concept, in accordance with Martínez et al. (2014), could be carried out in the following steps:

1. Choose the bibliographic database to locate the scientific production and the citations. In this case: Web of Science (WOS).

2. Establish the research area in study. Through the identification of the magazines that have traditionally been identified as spreading scientific advances in the area of gender entrepreneurship.

3. Calculate the H-Index of the research area. The calculation of the H-Index of the research area is done by establishing a classification of the articles in accordance with the citations, which happens in this work in 46 articles.

4. Calculate the H-Core of the research area. The H-Classics are identified using the most cited articles included in the H-Index of the research area and the H-Core.

In order for the article to have an easy to use structure, 10 of the articles with the most impact have been considered, that is to say, the first works in the H-Core classification with each one of the characteristics detailed, leaving the complete classification in annexes. For each title a file was created in which the aims, origin of the data, location, methodology and results are described.

3.4. H-Classics Analysis

Table 6
Ranking of 10 articles in H-Core

Source: Own preparation

The articles included in the H-Core have been grouped by area to describe the type of study done, the main approach to the work, the geographic location and the results; with the purpose of conducting an in-depth examination of the documents aimed at the research of woman entrepreneurship.

a. Type of study

For a better systematization of the studies produced, the 46 documents that make up the H-Core (appendix), have been grouped into these categories:

Empirical study/Impact study

In the case of research in which qualitative or quantitative techniques have been applied for the analysis of diverse topics related to women entrepreneurship.

Empirical or impact studies are the ones that have been carried out the most, with the analysis of entrepreneurial behaviour predominating, as well as the gender differences and the motivations for enterprise that women have had. Among the most outstanding, works is that of Cliff (1998), which provides analysis of attitudes towards business growth shown by men and women. Fischer et al. (1993) reported the behaviour of men and women in terms of business decisions are assessed using performance indicators and Buttner and Moore (1997), with a study of 129 women to know why they decided to stop being executives and begin their own businesses. In this section, 32 of the 46 documents that form the H-Core are grouped together.

Literature review

Group the titles that contain criticism of theories and concepts regarding female entrepreneurship.

In this category, 7 of the analysed documents are entered. In place number 8 of the table, and being one of the most referred to, is the work of Gundry and Welsch (2001), in which an analysis of the strategies of the high growth of women entrepreneurs is done. Authors with representative works (positions 15, 21, 23 H-Index, in appendix), such as Jennings and Brush (2013) and Hughes, Jennings, Brush, Carter and Welter (2012), document the business work of women and the entrepreneurial spirit, while the (Shelton, 2006) study addresses the entrepreneurial woman and the family context.

Case study

where they have grouped the studies with descriptive analysis or exploratory of individual characteristics of a place or aspects, like those done by Marlow and Patton (2005), to understand the topics of financing linked to gender. Are important also works of Bruni, Gherardi and Poggio (2004a) & Essers and Benschop (2007), to show ethnicity and entrepreneurship, with these being the most outstanding in the field of analysis.

b. Focus of the Studies

There are many perspectives on which the topic of gender entrepreneurship has been dealt with. However, 16 of the titles analysed refer to the analysis of psychological and cognitive aspects, followed by 15 pieces of research regarding gender differences and ethnic aspects; 9 focused on financing and the rest focused on family, public policies and contact networks.

Graphic 3
Focus of the studies

Source: Own preparation

Gender/ethnicity

This segment groups 15 titles from the H-Core classification. The aspects analysed address studies regarding motivation, attitudes and indicators of performance in entrepreneurship generated by men and women (Boden and Nucci, 2000; Bruni et al., 2004b; Cliff, 1998; Cowling and Taylor, 2001; De Martino and Barbato, 2003;             Diaz-Garcia and Jimenez-Moreno, 2010; Fischer et al., 1993; Gundry and Welsch, 2001; Lewis, 2006); distinction of gender and the work of women in income-generating activity of ethnic businesses (Bruni et al., 2004; Dallalfar, 1994; Essers and Benschop, 2007, 2009; Gupta, Turban, Wasti and Sikdar, 2009); with emphasis in comparison of female entrepreneurship  through GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) reports (Wagner, 2007).

Psychological/cognitive

Collected in this group are the studies regarding the motivations of women   becoming entrepreneurs (Buttner and Moore, 1997; Hughes et al., 2012; Weiler and Bernsaek, 2001), the perceptions of men and women as entrepreneurs (Baron, Markman and Hirsa, 2001; Fagenson 1993), and the growth decision of their businesses (Morris, Miyasaki, Watters and Coombes, 2006) and business performance (Buttner, 2001; Jennings and Brush, 2013; Lerner, Brush and Hisrich, 1997).

In the same segment, studies are classified regarding traditional and non-traditional entrepreneurs (Anna, Chandler, Jansen and Mero, 2000), rural entrepreneurs (Bock, 2004), genetic characteristics of entrepreneurs (Zhang et al, 2009) and the differences between female entrepreneur work and feminism (Ahl and Marlow, 2012).

Financing

From this perspective there is a review of the availability and access to financing (Buttner and Rosen, 1988, 1989; Marlow and Patton, 2005; Orser, Riding and Manley, 2006), the limitations of credit (de Mel, McKenzie and Woodruff, 2009), access to angel investors (Becker-Blease and Sohl, 2007) and the relationship between human and financial capital, and performance (Coleman, 2007; Klapper and Parker, 2011).

Family

This category contains studies such as that of Dhaliwal (1998) and Shelton (2006) related to women entrepreneurs and the family environment; and Powell and Eddleston (2013) with the study regarding the affective enrichment of the family and the business.

Networks/public policies

Three documents belong to this category which address aspects such as contact networks used by business women (Cromie and Birley, 1992), the purposes of human capital and the creation of networks of men and women entrepreneurs in their expectations for growth (Manolova, Carter, Manev and Gyoshev, 2007).

c. Geographic location

The H-Core analysis reaffirms the results obtained in the overall sample of articles that             are part of the bibliometric analysis, where a high concentration of studies is from the United States. In this case, 20 of the 46 articles came from different cities in North America. Canada and the United Kingdom also showed an important participation with impact documents.

An outstanding aspect of the analysis of the research done is the comparative study that authors resort to in order to go further into detail about stereotypes, characteristics, intentions and ethnicity. Among the most representative works are the financial assessment between the United States and the United Kingdom; the examination of socially constructed gender stereotypes and their influence on gender entrepreneurship in the United States, India and Turkey; the analysis of ethnic identities and gender in Morocco or Turkey and Netherlands.

The rest of the countries dealt with in the research are: Germany, Australia, Bulgaria, Italy, Sri Lanka, Great Britain, Israel, Northern Ireland.

The bibliometric revision done using the temporary, geographical and impact registers that are found on Web of Sciences give a clear perspective of the lines of research that emerged from the study of female entrepreneurship, from the first research carried out in 1975 until now. The alternative to analysis of classic authors, which the H-Classics is, based on the knowledge of the H-Index, allowed for the recognition of topics and directions of highly-cited research.

Scientific productions have been directed to research the intentions of women entrepreneurs (Hughes et al., 2012), what are the characteristics of women entrepreneurs (Fagenson, 1993), how they base their decision-making and apply competitive strategies to their businesses (Bruni et al., 2004b), discover the existence of qualities, skills and values which make them different or, on the other hand, more limited than their male counterparts (Weiler and Bernasek, 2001).

The hypotheses also highlight the influence of pre-conceived mental barriers and models (Baron et al., 2001) in the direction of financial support for the women entrepreneurs (Jayawarna, Jones and Marlow, 2015) and how women manage to balance family, business and personal development variables (Powell and Eddleston, 2013), so that the researchers have mostly committed to the use of empirical methods, case studies or literary review.

The results also denote that, countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom show a greater interest in deepening contributions to gender entrepreneurship. However, it is important to observe that while bibliometrics locates Spain as the third most literary productive country, the H-Core places Canada in the same position, based on authors whose productions are considered classics, which implies an important reflection on the versatility of the topics and the methodology in relation to the changes in the patterns of citations over time.

This is a clearly observable aspect from the study of Santos et al. (2018), whose results showed Canada as the third most scientifically productive country in 2016; however, the bibliometric analysis carried out in 2018 notes a recovery for Spain and India, in third and fourth place for publications, far above Canada.

The documents analyzed using bibliometrics and the H-Core approach have allowed for the discerning of common attention points, such as: gender differences, ethnic characteristics, psychological and cognitive aspects of entrepreneurs, financing, family, contact networks and public policies. However, the topic of female entrepreneurship overflows with research aspects that have not been properly researched such as social learning, human capital and environmental and technological influences (Lerner et al., 1997).

Among the restrictions that this study allows to discern, there are the number of articles published by a magazine that does not reflect a direct incidence in the impact level that they might have in a scientific community, in a way that the depth of content, the quality of the articles and the usefulness of the relationship with the number of publications has not been easy to specify.

The results give an idea of the current situation. However, these results can change with time, especially for the latest publications in the last two years which still need to grow considerably. This study is developed within a specific field: business, management and economics, which leaves it open to such a possibility, not only for the development of new research but also for the determining of key factors that influence the impact of the publications.

In summary, the descriptive nature of this work offers a rapprochement towards the literary evolution of women and entrepreneurship, with results that may favour present and future comparative studies or the generation of new variants, in accordance with the search patterns applied, the register of author citations and the variability of the topics.

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Appendix

H- INDEX

1. Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the Technical University of Manabi, Ecuador nfeijo@utm.edu.ec

2. Coordinator of the Tourism Career of the University of Cordoba, Spain, z42narov@uco.es

3. Vice Dean of Postgraduate and Institutional Relations. Faculty of Labor Sciences of the University of Cordoba, Spain, nuria.ceular@uco.es

4. The H-Classic methodology, from the H index, systematises the search for classic citations for any field of research to determine the works considered “classics” in a discipline (Martínez, Herrera, Lópe-Gijón and Herrera-Videma, 2014).

5. The H-Core represent the number of items that contribute to the h‐index.