This issue is special because it is dedicated to entrepreneurship. Not just entrepreneurship in general, but entrepreneurship with a gender perspective. In doing so, we came across the work of a team of researchers from the Universities of Murcia and Bradford (in Sociology and Organisation areas), who have been conducting a study on this matter. This research has been financed by State Program of Research, Development and Innovation Facing the Challenges of the Society of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain.
The aim of the research is to determine the skills that promote and/or, on the contrary, limits women's entrepreneurship. Along that line, the authors want to draw a map to guide actions to promote innovative, enduring, entrepreneurial activities that contribute to the promotion of entrepreneurship formulas with high synergistic capacity, like cooperative entrepreneurship. To do so, the researchers started from a qualitative approach, using two techniques: Interview and Nominal Group Technique (NGT). A total of 10 in-depth interviews were held with entrepreneurs (five men and five women) designated, for the purposes of the study according, sex, age, activity sector, company size and environment criteria, being transcribed and analysed using ATLAS. Ti, and developed on two levels. The first-level takes those tools that help to examine words, to make consultation appointments, to make co-occurrence grids, and to code a table of primary documents. These tools have allowed a descriptive and interpretative analysis of texts. On a second level, it has made a relational analysis based on the construction of a “semantic networks code” and “weak network”, which involved the establishment of useful semantic links for a comprehensive analysis of competency factors that contribute to entrepreneurship of women.
From this perspective, this special consists of 9 articles, of which the first eight articles are from the research team previously described.
There are articles about the competence factor as an engine of ventures, and about the role of cultural factors and gender role in female entrepreneurship. You can also find a reflection about the construction of gender differences in the discourse of entrepreneurship, with another one in psychobiological, cultural and familial aspects of entrepreneurship. On the other hand, we can read about some explanatory factors of female entrepreneurship, contrasting some limiting ones.
We have performed an analysis of the competence and social dimension of female entrepreneurship from Knowledge perspective, followed by another one on some abilities and skills that explain the differences in women entrepreneurship, and another about the moderating elements of entrepreneurship. Finally, in this first part, we find a prospective analysis of those elements that contribute to boost female entrepreneurship.
As an added value, we include articles that complement this point of view: a study of female entrepreneurship in a forced displacement situation, studied in a case of zone in Bogota.
I hope you enjoy this special issue and that it becomes a key initial point in female entrepreneurship research.
