Female Entrepreneurship Research Seminar Series graphic

Female-run enterprises are steadily growing all over the world, contributing to household incomes and growth of national economies. Female entrepreneurship is expected to grow very substantially as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, women face time, human, physical, and social constraints that limit their ability to grow their businesses. Many scholars investigated these topics. This virtual seminar series will bring together the insights from published research thereby increasing our understanding of female entrepreneurship issues and building a forum to further these ideas. 

Are you interested in Female Entrepreneurship research? This virtual research seminar series started on March 31!

The seminars took place on Thursdays 3:10-4:00 pm, MT via WebEx. 

3/31 - Female entrepreneurs and external financing
            *Please contact Agnieszka if you would like access to the deck summary from the session.

4/7 - Female entrepreneurs and asking for help
            *Click here to view the session recording.

4/14 - Entrepreneurial networks and women-owned ventures (Agnieszka) & The Unprecedented Value of Women Entrepreneurs in the Fintech Industry (Tracey Clark Jeffries) 

Networks play a fundamental role in shaping entrepreneurship and the extant literature has emphasized their compelling role in enabling women entrepreneurship. Dr. Kwapisz (Montana State U.) will review what we know about the role of entrepreneurial networks and how networks differ between men and women-led ventures. 

The Fintech industry includes a variety of services such as consumer banking, lending, international money transfer, insurance, personal finance, and equity financing. Today, there are over 3,000 Fintech Companies operating around the globe, servicing communities but the number of female founders in the fintech industry globally is only 12% and only 1% of the women-owned startups receive venture funding. Tracey Clark Jeffries (U. of Missouri -St. Louis) will talk about how gender inequalities in the fintech industry play a role in the economic inequities for women entrepreneurs as service users and founders. 

*Click here to view the session recording.

4/21 - Female entrepreneurs & accessing the 'appropriate' knowledge & resources for leading ventures

Presented by Dr. Brooke Lahneman

*Click here to view the session recording

4/28 - Women Entrepreneurs: A Force for Growth and Innovation

Dr. Amanda Elam is a research fellow at the Diana International Research Institute (DIRI) at Babson College. She is also the co-founder and CEO of Galaxy Diagnostics. She will present findings from the most recent 2020/21 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Women’s report. Women represent 1 in 3 growth-oriented entrepreneurs in the world yet continue to face many barriers to starting and growing businesses. Despite the challenges, the evidence suggests that women entrepreneurs are driving economic growth and social development in their communities and economies. Women are very active in high potential businesses in most economies around the world, but these growth-oriented entrepreneurs are often neglected in business support systems and policymaking, as heavily evidenced during the COVID19 crisis. The presentation will end with a set of recommendations to guide the development of policy and programming in support of women entrepreneurs, from crisis to opportunity.

*Click here to view the session recording

5/5 - Do Female Innovators Create Different New Goods?

Presented by Dr. Josh Feng from the Department of Entrepreneurship and Strategy, University of Utah

Recent work has documented low rates of female participation in the U.S. innovation system (entrepreneurs, venture capital partners, and patent inventors). Motivated by this, we provide systematic evidence on whether female innovators work on different types of goods, as measured by consumer purchasing data. We find that female entrepreneurs and inventors are more likely to create good purchased by female consumers than the overall population, both within narrow product categories and across industries. We also provide evidence on startups funded by female venture capital partners and broader differences between the work of male and female innovators.

*Click here to view the session recording.

Questions? Email Agnieszka at akwapisz@montana.edu.

This series is coordinated through Dr. Agnieszka Kwapisz, as a part of her work as the first ever Jake Jabs Professorship in Entrepreneurial Studies.

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