Abstract
This paper responds to the call for further investigation into female entrepreneurial finance in non-western contexts (Edelman et al., 2017; Serwaah & Shneor, 2021). Despite economic and socio-cultural differences across the world, most of the research into female angel investing has been conducted within the Western context. The paper aims to address this gap through its focus on female entrepreneurial finance within an economically wealthy country with restrictive social and cultural practices. Specifically, our underpinning research question explores entrepreneurial action (i.e., female angel investing) in Saudi Arabia.
To guide our research, we focus on what constrains and enables the practices of female angel investing in the Saudi Arabian context. We use an interpretive phenomenological approach (Smith & Fieldsend, 2021)primarily based on qualitative data gained through interviews and observations. We focus on the angel investors and the angel investing support network around them to enable us to provide a rich picture of how women in Saudi Arabia learn to invest, as well as the impact of angel investing networks on female angel investing in the context, and visa versa.
This research project responds to the calls of Harrison (2017) to contextualize entrepreneurship, and Edelman et al. (2017) and Serwaah and Shneor (2021) to further investigate non-western contexts of female entrepreneurial finance, particularly within the Saudi context (Alshareef, 2022; Danish & Smith, 2012). Specifically, our research project aims to contribute to the literature on female angel investing (Daou et al., 2022) by improving the understanding of what constrains and enables female angel investors and the angel investing support networks around them. In addition, our paper aims to contribute to the literature on the angel learning process (Botelho et al., 2023) by advancing our knowledge with regards to ‘learning to do’ and ‘learning to be’. Our research aims to support initiatives that address both EDIA and Goal 5 of the UN SDGs to empower women constrained by restrictive socio-cultural norms and expectations.