Business as usual is not working for women in business schools: Student perceptions of business people and entrepreneurs

Abstract

AbstractDespite growth in the number of women pursuing business and entrepreneurship careers, dominance of masculine traits associated with these occupations persists. If business schools use language that subconsciously reinforces gendered stereotypes, students might perpetuate sexist expectations. Using a natural language text processing tool to analyze the written responses of 247 undergraduate students in a US‐based university, we found that student perceptions of entrepreneurs are associated with more masculine characteristics compared to student perceptions of business people. To some degree, female students were more likely to make these associations than male students. Our findings suggest that business schools must do their part to break the cycles that elevate masculine characteristics of entrepreneurship. The negative effects of this manifest in the persistent gender pay gap, rising but still minority numbers of women entrepreneurs, continued practices of rewarding masculine traits in organizations, and ongoing underrepresentation of women students in schools of business.