Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: A Gender Perspective

Description

Based on extensive fieldwork, this book demonstrates how gender is an organizing principle of entrepreneurial ecosystems and makes a difference in how ecosystem resources are assembled and how they can be accessed. By bringing visibility to how ecosystem actors are heterogeneous across identities, interactions and experiences, the book highlights the role and complexity of individual, organizational, and institutional factors working in concert to create and maintain gendered inequities. Entrepreneurial Ecosystems provides research-driven insights around effective organizational practices and policies aimed at remedying gendered and intersectional inequalities associated with entrepreneurship activities and economic growth. Proposing a typology of four ecosystem identities, it highlights how some might be more amenable and organized towards gender inclusion and change, while others may be much more difficult to change, reorganize and restructure. It offers scholars, students, practitioners and policymakers insights about gender in relation to analyzing entrepreneurial ecosystems and for fostering inclusive economic development policies.

Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, Ph.D. is Professor of Practice in Engineering and Founder and Director of the Venture Capital Inclusion Lab at Brown University. Banu is co-editor-in-chief of Gender, Work & Organization. Her research on entrepreneurial ecosystems has been awarded grants from The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and INBIA/JP Morgan Chase. Recently, she testified at the US Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship to speak about the importance of women and minority investors and entrepreneurs. She is a member of CNBC's Disruptor fifty Advisory Council, a global group of fifty-five leading thinkers in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. Susan Clark Muntean, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Management at the University of North Carolina, Asheville. Her research strives to improve our understanding of entrepreneurial support organizations, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and corporate and family business, particularly with respect to governance, inclusion, politics and gender equality. Recognitions for this research include a grant award from The Kauffman Foundation, the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship's ('USASBE') best paper in entrepreneurship and ethics award in 2017, USASBE's best paper in family business honorable mention in 2014, and best paper in women's entrepreneurship at the International Council for Small Business in 2011.

'Starting with the assumption of ecosystem homogeneity, the authors explore gender across the multi-level elements of entrepreneurial ecosystems using insights from feminist scholarship. The book develops a typology of ecosystems reflecting the dynamic interactions of gender across levels, giving insights into how gender matters and providing new directions for theory development and research. A thoughtful and important read for anyone studying entrepreneurship.' Candida G. Brush, Franklin W. Olin Distinguished Chair of Entrepreneurship, Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, Babson College- Entrepreneurship Division 'Here is a timely, great, relevant book on entrepreneurial ecosystems as gendered phenomena, offering thoughts on effective organizational practices and policies aimed at remedying gendered inequalities. A must-read, not only for scholars, but also for practitioners and policy makers.' Karen Verduijn, Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 'Prof Dr Banu Ozkazanc-Pan and Prof Dr Susan Clark Muntean offer a truly thought provoking view on how entrepreneurial ecosystems are highly gendered and racialized. This book excels in providing a critical, interdisciplinary as well as empirically grounded contribution to the field. Particularly its implications for in- and exclusion make it a must read for both scholars and policy makers.' Dr. Caroline Essers, Associate Professor Entrepreneurship & Leadership, Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University