How does being a female influence the process of making decisions
related to starting and running a business?
Female (co) founders questioned about their process of making their decisions.
Kim S. van der Veer
Master Business Administration University of Amsterdam Kim.vanderveer@student.uva.nl
Master Thesis Entrepreneurship
Student number |10449132
First supervisor |Ton Gruijters Second supervisor |Tsvi Vinig
Date |May 25, 2015
Version |Final version
Keywords: female entrepreneurship, gender- based entrepreneurship, female (co) founder, decision-making, effectuation, startups, StartupDelta
1| Abstract
Knowledge on how female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition run a successful business is very limited, but necessary for StartupDelta in order to be able to improve the startup ecosystem in the Netherlands for these entrepreneurs and in general. In this study, we discuss secondary data on female entrepreneurship, effectuation and female decision making in a high risk environment, and compare these with primary data, obtained through interviewing twelve female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition on their decision making processes. From this discussion, we conclude that female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition do use the effectuation theory, but specifically interact with mentors, who play an important role in their decision-making processes. Secondly, we conclude that not every female characteristic has an influence on the decision making process, but that modesty stands out in its impact on the model. Modesty of female entrepreneurs is a factor that holds them from visibility to the rest of the world: they don’t get the chances or access to networks that the more visible entrepreneurs get and therefore they will not increase their visibility. We propose an alternative effectuation model, made from the perspective of female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition and recommend StartupDelta to improve the visibility of female (co) founders and facilitate their access to a mentornetwork. Finally startupdelta has to take the responsibility to take care of gender divirsity in the startup ecosystem.
2| Content
1|ABSTRACT ... 2
2|
CONTENT ... 3
3|
INTRODUCTION ... 5
4|
FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS ... 7
4.1
CONTEXT ... 8
4.2
FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN RESEARCH ... 9
4.3
FEMALE CHARACTERISTICS ... 10
4.4
STRIVE FOR IDEALISM ... 12
4.5
EMPHASIS ON FAMILY ... 13
4.6
VISIBILITY ... 14
4.7
SEXUALIZING ... 14
5|
EFFECTUATION AND CAUSATION ... 16
5.1
STEP 1:MEANS ... 20
5.2
STEP 2:GOALS ... 21
5.3
STEP 3:INTERACTION ... 21
5.4
STEP 4:COMMITMENTS ... 22
6|
CONCLUSION OF LITERATURE REVIEW ... 24
7|
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 26
7.1
EXPECTATIONS ... 28
8|
METHODOLOGY ... 29
8.1
RESEARCH DESIGN ... 29
8.2
STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH DESIGN ... 30
8.3
DATA COLLECTION ... 31
8.4
DATA ANALYSIS ... 33
9|
ANALYSIS ... 36
9.1
FEMALE CHARACTERISTICS ... 38
9.2
STRIVE FOR IDEALISM ... 39
9.3
EMPHASIS ON FAMILY ... 40
9.4
VISIBILITY ... 41
9.5
SEXUALIZING ... 42
11|
DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ... 46
11.1
VISIBILITY ... 47
11.2
MENTORING ... 48
11.3
ALL- MALE INFLUENCERS IN TECH: WE SAY NO! ... 49
12|
CONCLUSION ... 51
13|
REFERENCES ... 52
14|
APPENDIX I: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL ... 58
15|
APPENDIX 2: PARTICIPANTS PROFILES ... 59
16|
APPENDIX 3: INVENTATION MAIL ... 60
17|
APPENDIX 4: NODES MADE IN NVIVO ... 61
18|
MEMO: (FINANCIAL) RISK TAKING ... 63
19|
APPENDIX 5: EXPLANATION ICE LIST ... 65
The following documents can be requested at the author: -‐ Transcriptions of interviews
-‐ Audio files of interviews
Statement of originally
This document is written by MSc. Student Kim S. van der Veer who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document. I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
3| Introduction
“Steve jobs had some extraordinary feminine characteristics […]. There are a few feminine characteristics, which we can use to profile us, women, more. These characteristics are (1) the ability of multi-tasking, (2) the way we doubt on ourselves, (3) the way we work on ourself and (4) the way we strive for perfectionism. When I think of those four characteristics, it reminds me of Steve Jobs”
(Kroes, 2014)
The message of the speech Neelie Kroes delivered on Women’s day in 2014 is that there are several feminine characteristics that led to Steve Job’s innovative ideas and, moreover, that women, and especially female entrepreneurs, should exploit these characteristics more. Many of these women have the qualities that led to Steve Job’s success, except for one. Taking risk is a characteristic most women lack. Neelie Kroes spoke to the audience that consisted mostly of women: “We need to take risk. We need to look for challenges. We need to go out of our comfort zone. Women are in general so risk-averse. We want almost 100% security before we take the next step. If we take the next step before we have this security and give it more content, we are more steps ahead” (Kroes, 2014). Only one year later, Neelie Kroes works as special envoy of StartupDelta, an initiative of the Dutch government to create a better startup ecosystem in the Netherlands. About fifteen people work closely together with Neelie Kroes to make this happen. One thing StartupDelta focused on is improvement of talent, since that is one of the most important success factors of a startup (Kroes, 2015). Within this field, a focus on gender-based entrepreneurship is included. Neelie Kroes particularly supports future successful female (co) founders of a startup and/or women in IT. By successful, Kroes (2015) means women with a high growth ambition with their company. In 2008 she argued in an interview on television in ‘Collegetour’, that women only reach the top when they take responsibility for this change. Kroes wants to help the startup ecosystem to become more gender mixed. One of the main goals of this study is to advice Neelie Kroes and her team of StartupDelta what she can do for female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition to support them or to get more women to be inspired for starting a startup. This fits within improving the startup ecosystem within the Netherlands, because mixed (gender) teams achieve more results and startups with a female (co) founder are more succesfull in terms of a higher chance to survive (Brummans, M. Loonen, N. e.a., 2015).
There are several studies done on female entrepreneurs (Aidis, Welter, Smallbone, & Isakova, 2007; Brummans, M. Loonen, N. e.a., 2015; Hisrich & Brush, 1984). They provide us with valuable information on characteristics, and facts and figures of female entrepreneurs,
but they are not really about trying to understand the female entrepreneur (Ahl, 2006). Moreover, the target group Neelie Kroes has in mind, female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition and/or (co) founders of a startup are not represented in these studies. Some studies mentioned above present theories on what makes an entrepreneur successful, but do not agree on one model. It is hard to define what ‘successful’ means, and it is even harder for female entrepreneurs because for them being successful means something different than it does to male entrepreneurs (Ahl, 2006; Bennett & Dann, 2000)
Instead, we propose to research the decision making process of female entrepreneurs, therefore our research question is: how does being a female influence the process of making decisions related to startuing and running a business? In this research female (co) founders are questioned about their process of making their decisions. We do know how entrepreneurs take decisions (Sarasvathy, 2001a), and we can assume that making the right decisions leads to success. When we look into the theory that exists on the decision making process of an entrepreneur, female characteristics are not included. This is remarkable, because using female characteristics will contribute to innovation (Kroes, 2014) and innovation is the base of the success of a startup (Blank, 2010).
In this study, we aim to fill the knowledge gap on how female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition take their decisions. With this knowledge we are able to advice StartupDelta on how they can stimulate female entrepreneurship within startups. We have gained this knowledge by doing qualitative interviews with twelve high growth ambition female entrepreneurs in the Netherlands on how they take decisions as an entrepreneur. Since an attempt is made to offer new understanding in the existing literature, this study is exploratory by nature. Moreover, this study makes a contribution to the existing theory on decision-making processes of entrepreneurs.
In what follows, we will first review the existing literature on female entrepreneurs in order to identify the existing knowledge gap. Second, we will present the ‘effectuation theory’, a model we use to understand the decision making process of entrepreneurs. Then, we will elaborate on the theoretical framework and methods used for this study before we present the empirical data and analysis. Finally, we present the results of this study in a new model and translate this to recommendations for Neelie Kroes and StartupDelta.
4| Female entrepreneurs
In this chapter we will discuss what is already written about female entrepreneurship. Before doing that, we explicate the work definition for the sample of this research, by comparing multiple definitions about both entrepreneurs and startups of the existing theory combined with amplified knowledge out of practice.
There are uncountable definitions for the concept ‘entrepreneur’. One of them says that an entrepreneur is a person who has established business as a new venture, where business growth is intended for the prime reasons of generating profit and achieving personal satisfaction (Bennett & Dann, 2000). The definition for entrepreneurship as suggested by Schumpeter (1934) is one of the most accepted definitions in the academic world (Bull & Willard, 1993). This definition focuses on introducing new combinations. This combination might include a new commodity or a new quality of a commodity; a new way of production; an introduction of a new market; a capture of a new kind of supply of raw materials/components or restructure a whole industry (Schumpeter, 1934). The people responsible for carrying out these new combinations are called entrepreneurs (Bull & Willard, 1993; Ireland, Hitt, Camp, & Sexton, 2001; Schumpeter, 2013). In the definition of Schumpeter, entrepreneurs within an organization, called entrapreneurs, also fits within this definition. Sarasvathy divides entrepreneurs from managers within her theory of effectuation (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001a). She works with the term expert entrepreneur, which includes a founder or founding team who started at least one company that exists or existed for ten years minimum and had it taken public (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001a). This definition cannot be used for this study, because Neelie Kroes has the purpose to create a better ecosystem for startups and startups do not fit precisely in the definition of an expert entrepreneur as Sarasvathy (2009) uses to test the effectuation theory, because a startup is not necessary taken public and does not exist for at least ten years minimum. It is therefore needed to define the term startup. This research is done in the ecosystem of StartupDelta. Unfortunately StartupDelta is not willing to commit to one definition of a startup according to Johannesse (2015), director of StartupDelta. StartupDelta is an initiative of the Dutch government and the government works with closed definitions, e.g. for a startup there is a time limitation how long the startup exists. This is needed to judge who is qualified for subsidies for example. StartupDelta will not work with a time-limited definition because the startups that exist longer than only a few years are giving more economic value than the startups that just started. Therefore in this research we have to define the term startup that includes the startups, which StartupDelta is interested in. Within this study the definition of Blank (2010) and Ries (2011) are used to define a startup even as the different conventional views within the Dutch startup ecosystem.
We define a startup as a human institution designed to deliver an innovative product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. The human institution uses a scalable business model; the team is willing to grow fast and have no borders as a limitation. In the early stage, growth of the organization can be expressed by profits, revenues, users, clicks on a website, downloads, etcetera. A startup validates and pivots their hypotheses quickly to exchange their product or service for the return that they have in mind (e.g. money). If necessary the business model can be changed multiple times. Also, the team has a multidisciplinary founding team. In the end there is a business model that includes revenue. To exclude entrepreneurs with only ideas, the sample of this research consist only organizations that are recognized by the Dutch chamber of commerce.
Taking all the definitions together and letting them fit in this research we can conclude that the female entrepreneur of our sample needs to consist of the following things: the female entrepreneur needs to be a founder or cofounder of a startup. She has the desire to grow fast and also to expand international. Including the desire to grow in the definition ensures that self-employed women will be in the sample. Research showed that we could not assume that every entrepreneur wants to grow her business (Cliff, 1998; Trompenaars¹, van der Steege, & Schreuders, 2014). Also the organization is registered at the chamber of commerce. An additional requirement is that the organization is already funded by investors or by the entrepreneur herself or there is already revenue. This last requirement is needed because for this research we focus on high growth ambition female entrepreneurs and that provides some evidence showing that those female entrepreneurs a have high growth ambition.
4.1 Context
By looking to the facts, CBS1 and SCP2 are doing research about emancipation in the
Netherlands, commissioned by The Dutch ministry of OC&W3. In this study the researchers conclude that Dutch women are often employees instead of employers, namely nine out of ten, whereby freelancers are also included in the term of employers. Only females are questioned who are working twelve hours a week or more (Merens, A. & van der Brakel, M., 2014). The amount of entrepreneurs increased chiefly because of the increase of amount in freelancers in the Netherlands (Gaalen, Goudswaard, Sanders, & Smits, 2013). In 2014, a total amount of 376.000 women were self-employed (Merens, A. & van der Brakel, M., 2014). This is 12% of the workingwomen in the Netherlands, whereby applies that they work at least twelve hours a week. Out of the 376.000 self- employed women, 3% have employees
1 Dutch central statistics office 2 Social cultural plan office
(Annink & den Dulk, 2014). Since the female entrepreneurs of this study have the desire to grow fast with their organization and therefore employees are needed, we expect that the sample of female entrepreneurs of this research belong in this last category. This means that 94000 women are a potential sample of this study, whereby the aspects of a startup as mentioned, like their high growth ambition, are also included in this category. Also female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition have a business to run which is very time consuming. Therefore we assume that it is hard to find female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition who want to collaborate.
The majority of research is focused on entrepreneurship in general, i.e. the research is not gender orientated. However when we look to the sample, it consists of mainly men. Moreover these theories are focused on male characteristics and on the actions that belong to male entrepreneurship (Yetim, 2008). Interesting, because Kroes (2014) says that Steve Jobs owes his success to his characteristics that are female based. In the next paragraph we will give a summary of what the theory says about female entrepreneurship in general.
4.2 Female entrepreneurship in research
Since we will go in depth in female entrepreneurial decision-making in this research, we summarize what is already known in the literature about female entrepreneurship in general. While female entrepreneurship is underrepresented in the Netherlands (Merens, A. & van der Brakel, M., 2014) female entrepreneurship becomes more popular in other countries. More women than men are self-employed in Australia, United Kingdom and the United States (Bennett & Dann, 2000). Also in the developed countries, female entrepreneurship is taking the lead (Aidis et al., 2007; Minniti, 2010). Maybe it is therefore that a lot of studies about gender-based entrepreneurship are done in developed countries. These theories are often about self-employed women instead of female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition, which this study is focused on(Ahl, 2006; Aidis et al., 2007). By looking into the theory a lot of facts are mentioned about female entrepreneurs, it seems that researches want to know how a female entrepreneur is characterized in personal characteristics e.g. average age, marriage status etc. What follows is a short enumeration of what the theory says about these characteristics of female entrepreneurs.
The female average age of starting up a business is 25 to 40 years old (Bennett & Dann, 2000; Hisrich & Brush, 1984). The maximum probability of entrepreneurship age for women was less than 60 (Foreman-Peck & Zhou, 2014). Education background of female entrepreneurs shifts from liberal arts to business administration (Bennett & Dann, 2000). According to Cowling & Taylor (2001), female entrepreneurs are relatively high educated (Orhan & Scott, 2001). According to Bennet and Dann (2000), female entrepreneurs have a higher survival rate than male entrepreneurs. Reasons mentioned by Bennet and Dann (2000)
are that women overall better prepare before setting up their business, keep overhead costs low and have greater access to finance and management advice (Bennett & Dann, 2000). It seems that it is more likely to become an entrepreneur as a women when the environment does not stimulate entrepreneurship. Research showed that women are more likely to become entrepreneurs, in compared to average women, when their own country is less entrepreneurial minded than the average country (Foreman-Peck & Zhou, 2014). Such characteristics will not help to really understand a female entrepreneur with a high growth ambition. Alongside the shortage in studies of gender and entrepreneurship, we conclude that female entrepreneurs are not well understood in research.
To give this research more a substantive perspective instead of facts and figures about female entrepreneurs we talked with experts. Liza Müge is an assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam, specializing in the influence of gender in different careers. She mentioned that there are a few things that hold women back from a top career. First of all women strive for idealism instead of making money. Secondly, women are not visible enough. They choose to stay at the office and prioritize work above going to a network event. Thirdly, there is sexualizing: people in general have certain prejudices about women. On the other hand we use the conclusions of Neelie Kroes (2014). We see Neelie Kroes as an expert on gender and making career, because she was the first Dutch female European Commissioner. She concludes that qualities like sharing, multi-tasking, doubting oneself in a positive way, working on oneself, and being a perfectionist are also important for being an entrepreneur (Kroes, 2014). In this study, we see this as personal characteristics. A characteristic that is also needed for an entrepreneur is risk taking. This characteristic is less feminine (Kroes, 2014). Nevertheless what we did find in the theory about female entrepreneurship is their emphasis on family. Several studies mentioned this as a factor that motivates a woman to start a business or just to not start a business. This all lead us to the themes of female characteristics; strive for idealism; emphasis on family; visibility and sexualizing, where we have to go in depth in the theory to get a better understanding about female entrepreneurship and how this could affect their decision making process.
4.3 Female characteristics
Many studies are about the personal characteristics of an entrepreneur. We can conclude that underlying factors that are typical for entrepreneurs may differ according to gender. Because this research has the main goal to provide Neelie Kroes and StartupDelta advise what they can do to stimulate female entrepreneurs within the startup ecostystem, our starting point on female personal characteristics are the ones that Kroes (2014) mentioned in here speech as success feminine characteristics that are needed to become a top entrepreneur. Those female characteristics are: (1) the ability of multi-tasking, (2) the way women doubt about
thereselves, (3) the way women work on therselfes and (4) the way women strive for perfectionism. A characteristic that women do not have, but need to have to succeed as an entrepreneur is risktaking (Kroes, 2014). With these characteristics in mind we looked in the theory what is already sad about female characteristics related to the topic of entrepreneurship.
According to the theory can we find an explanation why relatively a small amount of women start their own company: because they think they have a relatively low chance to succeed. (Merens, A. & van der Brakel, M., 2014). This could be because women think in ‘fear and failure’ according to the social feminist theory and therefore they think that they are not capable of being an entrepreneur (Foreman-Peck & Zhou, 2014; Merens, A. & van der Brakel, M., 2014). Remarkable, because Neelie Kroes (2014) explains in her speech that Steve Jobs was a successful entrepreneur because of his female characteristics like the way he could multi-task, the way he could doubt on himself, the way he worked on himself and the way he did strive for perfectionism. One female characteristic that he did not have was the willingnessto share (Kroes, 2014). We also found in the theory that feminine characters are needed to be a successful entrepreneur in general; all entrepreneurs or managers need some qualities that are counted as feminine characteristics for example being a good listener (Briton & Hall, 1995). While Kroes (2014) and Brinton & Hall (1995) argued that characteristics that are feminine that will lead to a successful entrepreneur, we can also find theories that argued that it are the male characteristics that lead to a successful entrepreneur (Bennett & Dann, 2000; Littunen, 2000; Powell & Ansic, 1997a; Yetim, 2008). These studies concluded that taking (financial) risk, taking initiative and leadership lead to a successful entrepreneur (Bennett & Dann, 2000; Littunen, 2000; Powell & Ansic, 1997a; Yetim, 2008).
Despite the conclusion what kind of characteristics lead to a succesfull entrepreneur, the theory and Kroes (2014) both agreed that taking (financial) risk is a masculine characteristic and that taking (financial) risk is a characteristic that belongs to an entrepreneur. This is also mentioned by Kroes (2014) as a characteristic that female entrepreneurs need to do more. Taking risk is one of the components entrepreneurs need to have, especially when they want to grow their business (Kroes, 2014; Bennett & Dann, 2000). Risk taking for entrepreneurs includes the potential probability of getting rewards after an opportunity, which is created by the entrepreneur (Trompenaars¹ et al., 2014). The entrepreneur will take the risk before she will subject herself to the effects of failure, the opposite situation of getting rewards (Brockhaus, 1980). Female entrepreneurs face greater barriers to grow their companies, compared to men, so here it is the gender characteristic that could hold back a female entrepreneur from having a growing business. Risk taking behavior is regarded as a distinctive difference between female and male entrepreneurs. Female
entrepreneurs would have made less risky decisions in comparison to their male colleagues (Powell & Ansic, 1997b). This does not mean that women are no risk-takers at all, but that taking risk is more in the general character of a man than in the average character of a woman. Also women are focused on a safe (financial) future by starting their business (Trompenaars¹ et al., 2014). Since an entrepreneur has to make a lot of financial- and risk taking decisions, the difference by gender in making these decisions might have an influence in becoming an entrepreneur with a growing business. Powell & Ansic (1997) conclude that male and female managers taking different decisions by risk taking financial situations. No difference is found between men and women when they have to make decisions under risks to achieve a desired outcome (Powell & Ansic, 1997a).
Moreover, entrepreneurs in general are good storytellers (Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001). This is also what is needed in the process of Effectuation (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2008). Women are great in (non) verbal communication, the ability to establish informal social networks, being competent in developing relations of trust (Briton & Hall, 1995; Yetim, 2008). Intern and extern communication within your organization is extremely important to convince parties and to manage trustful relationships (Dawkins, 2005; S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001b). Women start a conversation faster than men (Eagly & Johnson, 1990; Ufuk & Özgen, 2001). Moreover women are better in convincing others and they listen better than men (Eagly & Johnson, 1990; Ufuk & Özgen, 2001). With these aspects in mind, we can conclude that women are better in problem solving, especially in providing solutions for interpersonal problems (Yetim, 2008). This is needed for an entrepreneur in their interactions and collaborations during the effectuation process, therefore we expect that the female (co) founders we use as sample will use the effectuation process during their decision-making process.
With all this information together we need to do research about how the limited of taking financial risk would affect the decision-making process of a female entrepreneur with a high growth ambition, because taking financial risk is a male characteristic but it is needed for an entrepreneur. It is interesting, because taking (financial) risk is a male characteristic, it will not say that women cannot have this characteristic. By interviewing female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition we will go in depth how much risk they have taken and how much risk they will take.
4.4 Strive for idealism
According to the theory, strive for idealism is one of the factors that could have an impact on the decision of female entrepreneurs to become a female (co) founder and that they measure their success in things that are good for the world. So a successful entrepreneur means something different for a man than for a woman. Research shows that male entrepreneurs
define success with grow rates and profit rates, while women define success as finding a balance between business and their private life, where the business needs to do something good for the world. (Bennett & Dann, 2000; Trompenaars¹ et al., 2014; Yetim, 2008). According to women, the definition of a successful company includes using their potential and creating a better world. These are also the motives for a female entrepreneur to start her own company. These factors have her business to accomplish to be called successful by the female entrepreneur. In general a business is not successful when it only focuses on making money, according to women (Trompenaars¹ et al., 2014). Female entrepreneurs value social prestige over profit (Yetim, 2008). Therefore we expect that the strive for idealism leads to other decisions than with the strive of making money. Since female entrepreneurs tend to make idealism more important than whatsoever, we need to find out with this study if this is also the case for the female (co) founders in this sample and how the strive for idealism affect their decision-making.
4.5 Emphasis on family
Several theories about female entrepreneurship included their family life and their perception on their family life within these theories. Therefore we sum up the most important conclusions from this theories that could have an effect for female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition on their decision making process. In general the theory concluded that women tend not to separate their business and personal life (Foreman-Peck & Zhou, 2014; Trompenaars¹ et al., 2014). Foreman-Peck and Zhou (2014) assumed that this could be owned to invisible inequalities between men and women that are part of culture. Within culture, women in general place a great weight on their family and they feel responsible for taking care of their family and their household (Foreman-Peck & Zhou, 2014; S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001b; Trompenaars¹ et al., 2014; Yetim, 2008). This influences the decision to (not) become an entrepreneur (Foreman-Peck & Zhou, 2014; Paul & Sarma, 2014; Saunders, Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2011). For example women are more likely to become an entrepreneur when their household is crisis-prone (Paul & Sarma, 2014). We see here the similarity with women who become faster an entrepreneur when their culture is not stimulating entrepreneurship, as mentioned before. Other female entrepreneurs start their business to balance their family and work life, they probably expect that having an business by their own makes it more easy to take care of their children compared to being an employee (Annink & den Dulk, 2014; Merens, A. & van der Brakel, M., 2014). For 14% of the Dutch female entrepreneurs is the expectation of having a more balanced work- private life by starting a business main reason to become an entrepreneur (Merens, A. & van der Brakel, M., 2014) According to the theory their is a shift in the western culture about which parent is more responsible for the children, namely looking after children or family is cited less and less
often by women: compared with ten years ago, the number of women who are unable or unwilling to work due to care tasks has halved. Men rarely cite looking after children or family as a reason for being unwilling or unable to work. (Merens, A. & van der Brakel, M., 2014).
In this study we will look at the emphasis on family of the female entrepreneur with high growth ambition. In which way does having a family influence here decision- making process?
4.6 Visibility
Since Liza Müge (2014) conclude that women are not visible enough during their career path e.g. women tend to stay at their office instead of going to a network event, we look into the theory what is said about the visibility of female entrepreneurs and what the theory said about networking and female entrepreneurs. Visibility of female entrepreneurs is an important factor since the visibility of great examples of female entrepreneurs leads to more female (co) founders (Blank, 2015). According to Trompenaars et al. (2014) invisible inequalities between men and women are the reasons why female entrepreneurs are limited in starting a business and have less access than men to resources. The solution is that women need to create different networks (Trompenaars¹ et al., 2014; Yetim, 2008). So we need to do research on how networks of females’ looks like. It is important to get insight of the network of female entrepreneurs because the effectuation theory, that will used as a model for the entrepreneurial decision making process in this study, includes commitments with other parties (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001a). Therefore we will elaborate networking in chapter 5.1.
4.7 Sexualizing
An important factor why women are not in top (management) positions is sexualizing (Mollema, 2012; Muge, 2014). There are several studies which conclude that a curriculum vitae for a top position are better judged when there is a male name on top instead of a female name (Moss-Racusin, Dovidio, Brescoll, Graham, & Handelsman, 2012; Smith, Paul, & Paul, 2007). One of the reasons can be find by mindbugs. These can be defined as small local misconceptions that cause systematic errors. This is a process that arises in the beginning of a human life (VanLehn, 1990). These mindbugs are one of the causes that people do not hire the best person for their team, but the one who looks the same as them or a person that looks like their manager. This is because they created mindbugs that they or their manager are the most capable person for the job (Mollema, 2012). Since there are more men in top management positions than women, mindbugs maintain this tradition (Merens, A. & van der Brakel, M., 2014).
Sexualizing could have an effect on female entrepreneurs since entrepreneurs are dependent of commitments of other parties, like financiers (Sarasvathy, 2001). Research showed that that female entrepreneurs have a lower chance to get a loan with a bank and the total amount that women will get as a loan is less than for male entrepreneurs (Bennett & Dann, 2000; Welter, 2004; Winn, 2004). Some researchers conclude that female entrepreneurs get discriminated by asking for a bank loan, while some conclude that there is no difference in gender by getting a loan from the bank. They conclude it is about self-employment people and people who have a company with employees (Bennett & Dann, 2000; Welter, 2004; Winn, 2004). Relatively more female entrepreneurs work as freelancer instead of having employees (Merens, A. & van der Brakel, M., 2014). It could be that it is not the difference between women and men who ask for a loan, but between self-employment and a company with employees. However, studies also showed that female entrepreneurs were considered less profitable than male entrepreneurs. By showing the same business plan, but with different names of entrepreneurs, the plans mentioned female entrepreneur names were considered less profitable than the plans that mentioned a male entrepreneur (Thébaud, 2015). Both in this research as the research about judging the curriculum vitae were both judge by a sample who consist both women and men. Likewise with the curriculum vitae studies, in the research of Thébaud (2015) female entrepreneurs were rated to be less skilled and less competent than male entrepreneurs, independent of the industry of their startup. Thébaud (2015) also conclude that participants systematically rated businesses of female entrepreneurs less investment worthy and less likely to be successful, regardless if it was a gender-balanced retail industry or a business in the high-tech industry, so this could also be a conclusion why female entrepreneurs have a lower chance to get a loan with a bank and the total amount that women will get as a loan is less than for male entrepreneurs (Bennett & Dann, 2000; Welter, 2004; Winn, 2004). That female entrepreneurs were rated less likely to be successful can be the effect of mind bugs but also of the belief that it is typical male characteristics that will lead to skills and competences that are needed to make a new venture successful (Thébaud, 2015) as we can also find in the studies of Bennett & Dann (2000); Littunen (2000); Powell & Ansic (1997) and Yetim (2008).
In this study it is not about proving or disproving sexualizing for female entrepreneurs. We conclude that there is sexualizing and we are doing research in which way female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition see this phenomena.
In this research we want to know from the perspective of a female entrepreneur if they noticed something like sexualizing. Do they recognize sexualizing? Does this have an influence on their decision making process as an entrepreneur?
5| Effectuation and causation
The theory of effectuation (S. Sarasvathy, 2001) will be used as a robust conceptual model as a valid and testable model for entrepreneurial decision-making. In this research we will use the theory of effectuation (Sarasvathy, 2001a) as a conceptual model of the entrepreneurial decision making process. In this chapter the model will be explained. As regards non-rational thinking, entrepreneurs and managers move along a different process of decision making at a strategic level. Entrepreneurs are more susceptible to the use of decision-making biases and heuristics than are managers in large organizations (Busenitz & Barney, 1997)
Decision-making is in line with future. Namely, all the decisions that are made will have an influence on the future; the consequences that will follow after the decision that is made. There are two variables to deal with the future in a decision making process: prediction and control. Prediction is about forecast the things that will happen in the next period. In the Netherlands, this is what we like to do with the weather for example. Controlling the future is to adopt the unpredictable proceedings and use these occurrences in your next decision. Based on this theory a matrix can be made with the human reactions after having a preference for prediction or controlling the future in Figure 1. Sarasvathy (2001) conclude that entrepreneurs like it to control the future, however they do not like it to predict the future. In general, entrepreneurs do not like market research behind their desk by using graphs and matrixes. Instead, they will talk about their ideas as a professional product/service without having a test model. Entrepreneurs use this advice or different opinions on this road to make new decisions, also called co-creation. By doing that they will control the future. Later more about co-creation will be explained.
Ries (2011) goes futher than co- creation, he suggesting that this is not enough to succeed a startup. An entrepreneur needs to test a product or service as soon as possible. This is a part of the lean startup method (Ries, 2011), with is a often used method to build a startup nowadays according to the program managers of Rockstart; an incubator in Amsterdam. Ries (2011) conclude that this principle is one of the success factors to succeed by starting a startup. The difference between Sarasvathy (2001) and Ries (2011) is that Ries conclude that an entrepreneur need to test your product or service by selling it, rather than only talk about it, this can also be a minimum value product. We can declare Ries (2011) statement with the zero-price effect; people, including costumers, react differently when they need to exchange money for goods (Shampanier, Mazar, & Ariely, 2007).
In this study we choose to use the effectuation theory of Sarasvathy (2001) as a model rather than the lean startup method because the effectuation theory is about the decision making process of the entrepreneur herself instead of a process that describes how to
start a startup. We are interested in the thinking process of a female entrepreneur therefore this choice. In Figure 1 we show that co creation is related to the high need of controlling the future and the low need of predicting the future.
Figure 1| Matrix of the need to control or predict the future (Sarasvathy, 2008)
There are two different ways of taking decisions in starting a company: causation and effectuation. Causation is defined by Sarasvathy (2010) as a process in which all decisions-taken are informed by a clear goal set in the future. All the decisions you have to take are in favor of completing this goal. And, according to Sarasvathy (2010), this is a way to predict the future. Effectuation, on the other hand is about controlling the future. In short the effectuation process includes discovering the contingencies and using them rather than exploiting preexisting knowledge.
Causation and effectuation are both about dealing with contingency. A contingency describes a situation that might take place, but the predictability is limited. One the one hand, you can set a goal in the future and you make all the decisions you have to take, in favor of completing your goal. This is a kind of prediction you try to make of the future. On the other hand there is effectuation. This is about controlling the future. The entrepreneur starts with her set of means and during the process, she makes a selection between the possible effects that could happen. The entrepreneur takes her means as a starting point to start a business, instead of a goal in the future. This process is also called aspiration. Effectuation can be seen as a way of thinking that uniquely serves entrepreneurs in starting a business and it provides a way to control a future that is inherently unpredictable (S. Sarasvathy, 2001). The processes
of effectuation and causation are showed in Figure 2. More over, Table 1 table shows the difference characteristics for effectuation and causation (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001a).
Table 1| The difference characteristics between Causation and Effectuation in the decision making process (Saravathy, 2001)
Causation involves: Effectuation involves:
1. A given goal to be achieved or a decision
to be made
1. Given set of means
2. A set of alternatives means or causes 2. A set of effects or possible operationalization’s of generalized aspirations
3. Limitations on possible means 3. Limitations on possible effects 4. Criteria for selecting between the means
Figure 3 shows the causation and effectuation process and the possible outcomes. For effectuation it means that every outcome could be a successful business. For causation it is only a reaching of the goal or a failure of the goal. When using causation, an entrepreneur can set every time a new goal if her setting goal is not reached. For effectuation it means that an entrepreneur does not know the outcome yet by starting the process, an entrepreneur will figure this out during the effectuation process. The advance of effectuation is that the future is controlled instead of predicted, and the entrepreneur feels comfortable with controlling the future as already stated. An entrepreneur knows her means and it could lead to different businesses. It depends on the chances she gets on her road. This is in opposition of causation, where the future is predicted. In the case of causation, if the future changes, the entrepreneur cannot reach her planned goal. By using contingencies the future can be controlled instead of
Means Goal
Effectuation
Causation
predicted, as is done following the causation process. The advantage of using contingencies and responding to the future is, again, that fewer resources are needed to create a successful outcome. And the lack of resources is the main challenge for a starting entrepreneur, as already said. An entrepreneur that takes effectuation as a starting point of her business is more flexible and not dependent on a certain path. In the next subchapters the effectuation process will be explained in depth. Therefore all the steps that an entrepreneur takes will be explained. We choose to explain this step by step because we will analyse the process in depth. In the theoretical framework we will combine this process with the result of the literature review about female entrepreneurs.
5.1 Step 1: Means
According to Sarasvathy (2001), all entrepreneurs have the following shared means as their starting point to start up a business; they all know who they are; they know their traits and abilities; and they know their social network Figure 4 The entrepreneur is aware of these tree means and she will use this to go to the next step. The question “Who am I?” is about the traits, tastes and abilities of an entrepreneur (S. Sarasvathy, 2001). What they know is about the education level and trainings, her experience and expertise (in her business field) (S. Sarasvathy, 2001). Whom an entrepreneur knows is about her social and professional network (S. Sarasvathy, 2001). We are going more indepth about networking, because Liza Müge (2014) underlined the importance of networking during a careerpath.
Figure 4 | Means of an entrepreneur using Effectuation (Sarasvathy, 2001)
According to the theory, it is important for female entrepreneurs to acquire more assets though their social networks and connections to get the same resources than male entrepreneurs do. The studies on the issue emphasize the fact that social women tend to make greater use of their social networks as a source of social capital (Yetim, 2008). Female entrepreneurs’ networks are different from male networks in the sense that female entrepreneurs’ network are constructed thorough relatively more informal means, and they rely more heavily on strong connections and contacts among family members, close relatives, friends and other related community members, which are important sources of social capital for female entrepreneurs (Yetim, 2008). Women need to increase the diversity of their networks by adopting an assertive and instrumental orientation to personal networks (Yetim, 2008).
5.2 Step 2: Goals
Secondly, after knowing her means, the entrepreneur will set some goals. These goals are about affordable losses rather than expected returns. These goals are different from the goals for causation (Figure 3, C1). Because an entrepreneur set goals for her process, but the outcome (Figure 3, upward of E3) could still differ from the idea what she will have in mind so far. For an entrepreneur setting a goal starts from: what she could loose and what an acceptable risk is for her Figure 5. For causation it is more about the expected return. Choices are based on the maximum return, while for effectuation the choices made depend on the risk you can maximum afford (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001a)
Figure 5 | Setting goals by an entrepreneur using Effectuation (Sarasvathy, 2001)
5.3 Step 3: Interaction
Entrepreneurs will interact with other people to test their idea and to get feedback from other people. This interaction is has preference of entrepreneurs above market research (TEDx Talks, 2010) The interaction drives the process of engaging others to join the venture of the entrepreneur, also called collaboration (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2008). During the interaction process, it is not the goal of the entrepreneur to sell her ideas, but to get these collaborations (TEDx Talks, 2010). She needs the collaborations to get more resources. And she needs the resources to make her venture a success.
Figure 6| Entrepreneurs will interact about their idea rather than doing marketing research behind their desk (Sarasvathy, 2010)
5.4 Step 4: Commitments
In some cases, it is worthwhile to result the interaction in commitments. Effectuation is about collaboration rather than competition. New opportunities are created by strategic collaboration. For causation it is about the competition. Value will here be created because you differ from your competition. Collaboration is needed for entrepreneurs because, i twill increase the resources (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001a). Examples of resources are knowledge and financial means. There is always a competitor who has more resources. Lack of resources means less competitive advantage on your biggest competition. The entrepreneur who follows the effectuation process will solve this by trying to search resources around them. The resources of your strategic partner will become also your resources and visa versa. So through collaboration, the entrepreneur will get more resources and therefore it will increase her means. The stakeholders are the people who committed themselves to the venture. These commitments are limited to what the committed stakeholder can loose. A committed stakeholder is not a synonym for a board member or an employee; it is somebody who can help you further with your idea. They will influence the entrepreneur by shaping the original idea into one that an enormous amount of stakeholders are committed to (Sarasvathy, 2001a). This part of the effectuation process is shown in Figure 7. The entrepreneur will set some new goals as a result of having more means of the collaboration. Putting all the steps together, the dynamic model of effectuation is given in Figure 8.
Figure 8 | Dynamic model of effectuation process (Sarasvathy, 2001)
Effectuation is not a better process of decision-making than causation or visa versa. It is just that effectuation is a process where failure can be managed more flexible compared to causation. This could be beneficial for a starting entrepreneur. Research shows that entrepreneurs prefer the effectuation in the early stage of a new venture. However the best entrepreneurs are skilled to use both causation and effectuation. Especially later in the venture stages, causation is also needed to survive the venture (S. Sarasvathy, 2001).
6| Conclusion of literature review
Neelie Kroes committed herself to support women with a high growth ambition in entrepreneurship to start a startup that is relatively successful. Therefore it is needed to understand the female (co) founders that already have a startup within the definition we used for this study. The reason why there is chosen for female entrepreneurs behavior during a decision making process, is to go more in-depth and to focus on one specific process of an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur has to make a lot of choices and decisions. She has the end responsibility, so her decisions are leading the company. That is why this process is interesting to do research about; the decision making process is important to run a company.
We looked at the startups that are relatively most successful and have Dutch female (co) founder. We defined “relatively most succesfull” in terms of growth, e.g. in profit, employees or users. We assumed that making the right decisions will lead to a startup within our definition of a startup as a human institution designed to deliver an innovative product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty, using a scalable business model including a team that is willing to grow fast and without borders as a limitation. This assumption lead to test the effectuation theory (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001a) on female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition. By understanding the decision making process of those female entrepreneurs, we were able to advise to Neelie Kroes about what she can mention for the female entrepreneurs within the startup ecosystem. We chose to test their decision making process with terms of female characteristics that hold women back of making a top career, because we assume that this characteristics could possibly influence the decision making process of a female entrepreneur with a high growth ambition.
The understanding we currently have about female entrepreneurship is grounded in research on female entrepreneurs in developing countries or female entrepreneurs who run their business part time with non or a few employees and having no ambition to have a high grow company in terms of finance or employees. But this is not the female entrepreneur we were looking for, because Neelie Kroes is interested in female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition. We assumed that female entrepreneurs without having a high growth ambition makes different decisions than the decisions that are needed to become a highly grow company in the Netherlands, Europe and further in the world. So, there is theory of what influences the decisions of female entrepreneurs, however by looking deeper into this theory, we concluded that this is most of the time based on research of women who have not the highly growth ambition what a startup defines. This means, that this kind of theory is only limited useful to define the success factors for the female entrepreneurs with the high grow ambition for their company.
The effectuation theory (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001a) is one of the more consistent theory to do research about the decision making process of entrepreneurs. This theory is referenced in more studies about the success factors of entrepreneurs. To combine the effectuation theory and female entrepreneurship we test the several factors that are mentioned as factors that hold women back from a top career or factors that are influences the decision of women to become (not) an entrepreneur. These factors are mentioned before as female characteristics; strive for idealism; emphasis on family; visibility and sexualizing. In the current theory these factors are not included in the research of Sarasvathy (2001). Logical, because her sample consist of expert entrepreneurs, defined as a founder or founding team that leaded the company for ten years of more, that created companies somewhere between 1960 and 1996 and took at least one company public (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2008). We assume that there was a small change that the sample of Sarasvathy (2001) consist a great participation of female entrepreneurs because less than 3% of the companies that went public in the United States in the period from 1996 to 2013 had a female founder (Demos, T. & MacMillen, D., 2014). We assume that this period has not a decreasing amount of female entrepreneurs comparing to the period that Sarasvathy used for her research in 2001. Since Sarasvathy (2001) conclusion is a theory that effect all entrepreneurs with probably a sample that consist mostly men, qualitative research is needed to get a deeper understanding of the decision-making process of the successful female entrepreneurs in terms of high growth.
Besides the reason that Neelie Kroes committed herself to stimulate female entrepreneurship, there is chosen for female entrepreneurs as a sample because during the pre-research many theories are found with a sample what consistent of male entrepreneurs. This study fits in a big research gap being that female entrepreneurs have rarely been studied in-depth (Greene, Hart, Gatewood, Brush, & Carter, 2003). Moreover, case studies about entrepreneurs in the western culture are most done with male entrepreneurs and that seems so obvious in the literature. We will provide a study about how female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition, also called female (co) founders, take business related decisions within their growing company. Therefore we will describe and interpreter the way in which they take their decisions. So this study remains a practice that is not well understood in the theory so far. In the next chapter we will provide the theoretical framework for this study, which combines the steps of the effectuation theory and the feminine factors and how we expect they would be related with the effectuation theory. We will give a draft in a conceptual model. After explaining that, we go in depth about the methodology.
7| Theoretical framework
The underlying question we explored in this study is: how does being a female influence the process of making decisions related to starting and running a business? In other words, how do female entrepreneurs make their choices and what role does their femininity play in this process? Is there something different compared to the decision making process of male entrepreneurs from their female perspective; do female entrepreneurs notice any difference between themselves and their male colleagues in the process of making decisions? Because the theory of effectuation (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001a) is used for the decision- making process of an entrepreneur, this theory is the base for our conceptual model. Moreover, we chose for five factors that could possible effect the effectuation process (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001a). These factors are chosen because they come with being a woman and because the theory suggests that they have a negative influence on a women’s career path. For this research we studied female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition, therefore we can use the effectuation process (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001a) as a conceptual model for the decision making process of these female entrepreneurs. The effectuation process is shown in the conceptual model including all the steps that are explained in chapter 5| Within this conceptual model we added the five factors: (1) female characteristics, (2) family, (3) idealism, (4) visibility and (5) sexualizing. We will test which factors have an influence on the decision making process of female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition and if they have a relation, we are interested in how they are related to the effectuation theory (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001a).
The first factor is about female characteristics. As concluded above, the theory is not univocal which characteristics lead to a successful entrepreneur. We chose to take the characteristics that Neelie Kroes (2014) mentioned in her speech as a starting point, because in the end adviced her end here team of StartupDelta. First focussed on risk taking because the theory and Neelie Kroes (2014) argued that risk taking is needed to become a successful entrepreneur in terms of a having a high growth business. We concluded after the literature study that there is a gap in understanding female entrepreneurs, so we decided to let female characteristics within the conceptual model instead of replacing this by a factor called risk taking. We did this because we want to test if the female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition have a typical (feminine) characteristic that has an influence on the effectuation process of female entrepreneurs.
The second factor we wanted to test was if having a family influences the decision making process. We took this factor because the theory suggested that family has a role in decision-making process of a female entrepreneur. This was also the reason for the third
factor we included in the conceptual model; we wanted to know if the strive for idealism of female entrepreneurs had an influence on their decision making process.
The fourth and the fifth factor we explored are based on external parties, because there were several theories that concluded that lack of visibility and sexualizing had an influence on the careerpath of women. We chose to test this from the female entrepreneur perspective. Concrete, this means that we had to separate these two factors from a direct link to the effectuation theory, because the visibility and sexualizing was not about the female entrepreneur but it was about how the third party reaction on those women by making decisions that influenced the female entrepreneur. So visibility and sexualizing are possible included in the decisions of a third party and therefore visibility and sexualizing have possibly an indirect influences on the decision making process of the female entrepreneur herself. We were interested in the way this female entrepreneur noticed this or has to do with this during her decision making process as a female entrepreneur. All this above lead to our conceptual model below. The conceptual model lead to expectations, elaborated in the next paragraph, which were used for the direction in this emperical research.
Figure 9| Conceptual model which present themes that influences the desiscion making process of female entrepreneurs with a high growt ambition
7.1 Expectations
First of all, we expected that female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition used the effectuation theory (S. D. Sarasvathy, 2001a) as their decision-making process, because this is what the theory suggested. Secondly, in regards to the female characteristics, we expected that those female entrepreneurs have no or limited examples of taking risk, but if they do have these, we expected that their most risky decision is about money, because women are risk avoidance especially in relation to financial risk. ((Aidis et al., 2007; Brummans, M. Loonen, N. e.a., 2015; Cliff, 1998). Thirdly, we expected that their emphasis on their family had an influence on their decision making process e.g. female entrepreneurs start a business because they think they can combine a business better with their family life than their job as employee. To test this hypothesis we interviewed female entrepreneurs with, and female entrepreneurs without children. Moreover we expected that the female entrepreneurs would elaborate on some situations where they felt sexualizing was part of this situation e.g. a female entrepreneur would like to get a loan from a bank. The person who needs to give this loan could underestimate the entrepreneur because she is a woman. The banker would not give the permission for a loan. This example has no direct influences on the effectuation process, however the female entrepreneur cannot reach her financial means that she needs for the goal that she wants to achieve because of the way people acquire sexual associations. Also we were interested in how visible those female entrepreneurs were, therefore we liked to know where they find their network. Finally we expected that female entrepreneurs use their femininity in their decision making process since we are doing gender-based research.
8| Methodology
This chapter starts by explaining which research design is used and why. Then an explanation is given about the data analysis. Furthermore, information is given about the sample group and how the data is collected including the interview protocol. The results of the analyzed data provides knowledge about the decision-making process of female entrepreneurs. This provides more knowledge in the theory about how being a woman influences the decision-making process of female entrepreneurs. Whereby the next factors are included: female characteristics, emphasis on family, strive for idealism, sexualizing and visibility of female entrepreneurs. This research is primairy-applied science, with a theoretical relevance. The theoretical relevance of this research is about testing existing theories, for example the effectuation theory (Sarasvathy, 2001) and to add new knowledge or refine this theory. After analyzing the data, Neelie Kroes will be presented with an advice for the initiative Startup Delta, which was the main goal of this research and therefore this research was an applied research. This advice includes action points for how she will be able to serve ambitious female entrepreneurs and how she can inspire and stimulate women to start a high growth startup.
8.1 Research design
By setting up a framework and plan on how to perform this study, the research design maps this study from original questions to conclusions. The research design needed to be consistent and precise so that other researchers can follow the same procedure (Yin, 2014). This research explored how factors like the importance of family, gendering, female characteristics, strive for idealism, and their visibility influences the decision making of a female entrepreneur. Given the lack of scientific research about the decision-making process for female entrepreneurs, this research refined the theory through qualitative research; with this theory advice will be given to Neelie Kroes and her team at StartupDelta. This type of research is best suited to understand new phenomena with openness and flexibility (Boeije, 2014; Yin, 2014). The combination of refining the theory and providing an advice for StartupDelta makes this an applied research. According to Yin (2014), qualitative research is used for answering questions, that include “why” or “how,” studying a real-world phenomenon of a relatively unexplored area of interest. Qualitative research can also be used for examining and articulating processes (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007).
This study examined the effectuation process of female entrepreneurs and goes in depth to understand how these female entrepreneurs make decisions, with additional influences such as having a family, gendering, female characteristics, strive for idealism, and
visibility that could influences this decision-making process. This study is also an exploratory study because women entrepreneurs are a kind of a ‘new’ phenomenon in entrepreneurship and this study creates a new perspective on the case of female entrepreneurial decision-making. An exploratory study is mostly done when the nature of a problem is vague and there is a desire to elucidate this (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007; Saunders et al., 2011).
Both inductive and deductive approaches were used in this research. The coding started inductive, but went deductive pretty soon. As Saunders et al (2011) explained, qualitative research uses an existing theory to come up with a set of interview questions. This is the deductive approach. It is used to get an understanding of the existing knowledge about the decision-making process and to find out what has already been said by experts about female entrepreneurs and the decision-making processes. Because there is little existing material on this subject, this research also used the inductive approach. In the process of this research, the shift from deductive to inductive went but relatively fast; after defining several factors as a starting point that might influence the decision-making process of female entrepreneurs with a high growth ambition (deductive), in-depth interviews were taken to gather data. It is important to get insight in decisions that female entrepreneurs take, because this leads to understanding their process of making decisions and how factors as female characteristics, the importance of family, gendering, female characteristics, strive for idealism and their visibility, influences this process (inductive). The best way to get this information is to interview these female entrepreneurs with semi-structured in-depth interviews (Boeije, 2014). In depth interviews provide rich content and specific examples (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007), especially this case study since entrepreneurs are also storytellers (Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001). By systematically assembling the content of the interviews of the female entrepreneurs in different subjects, the existing theory may be refined (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007; Temple & Young, 2004); this is an inductive process. (Saunders et al., 2011).
This study also included qualitative research about understanding the fundamental factors that influence female entrepreneurs while starting and running their business. This way of understanding the respondents is also called interpretive approach (Boeije, 2014). This approach is used to describe, to interpret and possibly to explain the decision-making process of female entrepreneurs. The in-depth interviews are a way to understand the context for their decisions. This study focused on a relatively small sample group of twelve female entrepreneurs (Boeije, 2014).
8.2 Strengths and limitations of the research design
The strength of this research design was that an in-depth interview contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the decision-making process for female entrepreneurs.
