Resumen de Gender effects on entrepreneurship: evidence from Bulgaria
Existing research on female entrepreneurship considers mainly data from Anglo-Saxon countries like USA and UK (Ahl, 2002; Verheul, 2005). Despite the importance of female entrepreneurship in transition economies (Degtiar, 2000; Stoyanovska, 2001), the available literature on gender and entrepreneurship in that context is scarce (Barkovic and Borozan, 2004; Isakova et al., 2006) and suffers from important limitations.
The general research objective of this doctoral thesis is to examine moderation, direct and indirect gender effects on entrepreneurship in a transition context. The thesis addresses various neglected themes in the area of female entrepreneurship identified in the literature including gender differences among potential entrepreneurs (Mueller, 2004, Greene et al., 2003); the effects of gender on performance (Carter et al., 2001); differences between male and female entrepreneurs and their businesses in transition economies; and gender differences in risk taking (Gustafson, 1998; Brindley, 2005). A separate chapter of the thesis focuses on each of the following themes: entrepreneurial intentions of potential male and female entrepreneurs; gender differences in entrepreneurs, business, and environmental characteristics; gender effects on firm performance; and gender differences in risk behaviour.
This research combines the Institutional Theory and the Feminist Theory in a general theoretical framework to explain gender differences in entrepreneurship in a transition context. The distinction between the moderator and the mediator function helps us to probe more deeply into the nature of causal mechanisms (Baron and Kenny, 1986:1173 underlying entrepreneurial behaviour of women and men and the performance of their businesses in a transition context. The studies included in the doctoral dissertation are based on three different relatively large mixed samples (including both male and female (potential) entrepreneurs).
Our findings reveal the different ways in which gender can exert influence on entrepreneurial intentions, firm performance, and risk behaviour of entrepreneurs in a transition context. Our empirical results suggest that there are both direct and indirect as well as moderation gender effects on entrepreneurship in a transition context. The findings about gender differences in entrepreneurship in a transition context reported in this doctoral thesis are very similar to differences between female and male entrepreneurs and their businesses identified in the literature in Western countries. Our conceptualization of the different ways in which gender can influence entrepreneurship in a transition context has important policy implications.
