Exploring gender-related stereotypical challenges: The influence of these challenges on the founding female entrepreneur during her entrepreneurial trajectory

Abstract: The fastest rising group of entrepreneurs is represented by females, yet entrepreneurship is still considered a male-dominated industry. Female entrepreneurs have to deal with gender-stereotypical challenges, due to the overrepresentation of men in entrepreneurship. Contemporarily, the concept of female entrepreneurship is understudied and scarce, specifically the entrepreneurial identity. This thesis aims to develop knowledge about how gender-related stereotypical challenges are experienced by female entrepreneurs and thus become an obstacle in the subsequent steps that they take. Supportively, this study aims to understand how challenges are experienced during the entrepreneurial trajectory of the female entrepreneur. This, by interviewing nine founding female entrepreneurs, operating in male-dominated industries, that have taken their business into operation, and are located in the Skåne region of Sweden. The authors apply an inductive approach and gather empirical data by conducting two semi-structured interviews per individual. The insights are mapped out in a personalized entrepreneurial trajectory for each female entrepreneur. Using the Gioia methodology, the findings are derived that lead to 2nd-order themes and aggregate dimensions. Primarily, the findings show that female entrepreneurs are experiencing gender-related stereotypical challenges during their entrepreneurial trajectory and cope with them over time. These gender-related stereotypical challenges concern the female entrepreneur’s internal ability to exploit the business as well as the external perspective on how the female entrepreneur is perceived by her environment. Additionally, these gender-related stereotypical challenges are interlinked with the female entrepreneur’s aspiration to grow as well as her legitimacy. The findings of this thesis suggest that future research should (1) incorporate gender-neutral challenges that influence the female entrepreneur's entrepreneurial trajectory; (2) include the male counterpart in the sample selection; (3) focus on external legitimacy by approaching the female entrepreneur’s stakeholders; and (4) expand the study with suggestions on how to overcome and solve gender-related stereotypical challenges.