Blended value and female entrepreneurial performance: social and economic aspects of education and technology transfer

Abstract

We reviewed the literature on institutional forecasters of entrepreneurial action across international settings. Our objective was to explain variance in entrepreneurial venture performance based on gender, education, culture, and institutional resources of financing, technology transfer, and state policies. Our conceptual model subsumes various prior approaches to entrepreneurship. Our empirical examination is especially large and includes individual data (n = 198,384) from 69 different regional contexts captured by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. To examine institutional factors in the proper qualitative context, we utilized additional data from the National Experts Survey of Entrepreneurial Climate. We examined interactive effects with rigorous statistical analyses. Our research shows that, for female entrepreneurs, education moderates the effect of institutional factors on performance in general and of technology transfer activities in particular. Our study offers a powerful implication that education is vital to female entrepreneurs across cultures. Moreover, our study shows that technology transfer support is particularly important for females as it creates entrepreneurial opportunities that are uniquely actionable in gendered contexts.