The role of feminisms on entrepreneurial behavior and strategy

Feminist cultures integrate values that can trigger relevant social changes and challenge stereotypes and prejudices through an intersectional perspective. Across various spheres of society, feminist cultures contribute to opening social environments to groups previously excluded based on stereotypical narratives. In addition, feminist cultures promote and disseminate values that can trigger phenomena of social and environmental value creation. The entrepreneurial world has been historically tainted by excluding narratives that delegitimize the entrepreneurial action of entire social groups. The dominant entrepreneurial archetype has been characterized by utilitarian values and the motivation for the generation and maximization of profit. Nonetheless, the entrepreneurial landscape has gradually enriched itself with entrepreneurial phenomena not adhering to the dominant narrative, which are rooted in entrepreneurial personalities with heterodox value systems and not exclusively economic motivations. Feminist entrepreneurship is emerging as a rapidly expanding phenomenon in this context. However, the relationship between feminisms and entrepreneurship has been largely neglected by the attendant literature. The aim of this dissertation is therefore to explore the domain of feminist entrepreneurship. After conducting a systematic review of the extant literature, the work focuses on the analysis of the values, motivations, and business practices underlying and characterizing feminist entrepreneurship. Adopting a qualitative pragmatic approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted to investigate, in light of the theory of planned behavior and motivational studies, the value systems and entrepreneurial motivations of 12 entrepreneurs self-identifying as feminist. A thematic analysis of the interviews transcripts allowed the feminist values shared among the interviewees to be identified as gender equality, caring, openness and inclusivity, and reflexivity. These values were consistent with the motivational instances reported by the entrepreneurs (namely, the generation of not solely economic impacts, challenge, and self-realization), thus informing motivational studies of the correspondence between values and motivations. Additionally, the reported values serve as motivational prerequisites for the adoption of feminist business practices regarding relationships with customers and employees. The research entails several impacts at the research, managerial, and societal levels. The dissertation contributes to illustrating the cognitive-behavioral modalities through which cultural values are reflected in entrepreneurial motivation, providing a novel insight from a subgroup neglected by previous literature. Simultaneously, the research contributes to delineating the theoretical boundaries of feminist entrepreneurship, first analyzing its research context and then expanding its understanding through qualitative investigation. From a managerial perspective, this research enables an initial expansion of knowledge regarding entrepreneurial motivations, which can be beneficial for the development of more inclusive and heterogeneous entrepreneurial training programs. On the societal level, the research contributes to investigating an entrepreneurial phenomenon in which ethical values seem to align with motivations and business practices, the understanding of which could enable its diffusion with evident implications in terms of social value generation.