Entrepreneurial Functions by Women Entrepreneurs: Does Incubation create a level playing field for Innovation?

This project aims to explore how women entrepreneurs perform their entrepreneurial functions within business incubators. Women
entrepreneurs are known to suffer from impoverished social networks that precludes them from performing their entrepreneurial
functions like opportunity recognition, resource mobilization and innovation. Policy makers seek to support and enable women
entrepreneurs in various ways. Incubation is one such instrument that governments encourage to boost entrepreneurship among
women. Incubation is known to impact opportunity recognition of entrepreneurs by placing them in information rich networks and
grooming them to remain alert of new opportunities. Incubation also boosts resource mobilization by signaling legitimacy of
entrepreneurs to resource and information holders. It is, therefore, expected to positively enhance innovation by providing for novel combinations of the resources, information and ideas. However, incubation has traditionally been a male bastion where the “old boys’ network” thrives and perpetuates gender inequalities. So, it is not immediately apparent if incubation holds the same benefits for women entrepreneurs as it does for male entrepreneurs. We seek to address this in this project.

Faculty Supervisor:

Rajiv Krishnan Kozhikode

Student:

Partner:

Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

Discipline:

Business

Sector:

Other

University:

Simon Fraser University

Program: