Artigo

1042-2587
© 2006 by
Baylor University

E T&P

Why Research on
Women Entrepreneurs
Needs New Directions
Helene Ahl

Research articles on women’s entrepreneurship reveal, in spite of intentions to the contrary and in spite of inconclusive research results, a tendency to recreate the idea of women as being secondary to men and of women’s businesses being of less significance or, at best, as being a complement. Based on a discourse analysis, this article discusses what research practices cause these results. It suggests new research directions that do not reproduce women’s subordination but capture more and richer aspects of women’s entrepreneurship. Introduction
Several authors maintain that research on women entrepreneurs suffers from a number of shortcomings. These include a one-sided empirical focus (Gatewood, Carter, Brush,
Greene, & Hart, 2003), a lack of theoretical grounding (Brush, 1992), the neglect of structural, historical, and cultural factors (Chell & Baines, 1998; Nutek, 1996), the use of male-gendered measuring instruments (Moore, 1990; Stevenson, 1990), the absence of a power perspective, and the lack of explicit feminist analysis (Mirchandani, 1999; Ogbor,
2000; Reed, 1996). While fully agreeing with the above, this article takes the critique one step further and discusses the consequences of such shortcomings and suggests some ways to amend the situation.
The suggestions are based on a discourse analysis of 81 research articles (73 empirical and 8 conceptual) on women’s entrepreneurship published between 1982 and 2000 in four leading entrepreneurship research journals1 (Ahl, 2004). The reviewed articles covered the psychology of women entrepreneurs, their personal background and business characteristics, attitudes to entrepreneurship, intentions to start a business, the start-up process, management practices, strategies, networking, family issues, access to capital, and performance.2 Please send correspondence to: