Abstract:

While studies in the literature have shed light on obstacles and facilitators related to female entrepreneurship in different contexts (McAdam, 2013; Laffineur et al., 2018; Cullen, 2020; Ughetto et al., 2020; Alhajri and Aloud, 2023; Mouazen and Hernández-Lara, 2023; Oladipo et al., 2023), there is still some lack of clarity whether women still face some barriers or whether there are many antecedents these days that stimulate their entrepreneurial initiatives. Accordingly, this study seeks to explore factors motivating women to start their businesses, and to check whether women still face some barriers, and if so, how they overcome them. Besides, and in particular, this research aims to understand how women in high managerial positions think in terms of starting their own business and how their long office hours employment influences them to start their own business in light of family duties. This study will refer to some data collected through ten semi-structured interviews in 2014 to highlight the barriers and facilitators that women reflected on. However, the current research plan is to collect further data through around additional twenty semi-structured interviews in the UK and Lebanon, to understand whether women still face the same barriers or new barriers, how they deal with them and what antecedents affect their entrepreneurial intentions. Data will be analysed using thematic analysis. Beside providing theoretical and practical implications, this study will suggest future areas of research in the field.

Please choose your submission type: Developmental Paper

Primary Track: Gender in Management

Keywords: COVID-19 and gender perspectives;Cross-cultural issues in gender and management;Gender and entrepreneurship

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Dr. Nicole EL Maalouf