Gender and the structuring of the entrepreneurial venture: an effectuation approach

Abstract

This study adds to the entrepreneurship literature by addressing the role of gender in entrepreneurial decisions. We adopt effectuation as an alternative framework and method to the typical experimental laboratory methods and investigate whether the contrasting evidence on the gender-entrepreneurial decision relationship is due to the methodological and conceptual limits of the traditional models of decision making. We find that men rely on the effectuation framework more than women and that diverse stored information mediates gender differences in adopting effectual criteria. We do not find that women adopt the effectual 'affordable loss' decisional criterion more than men despite their stronger perception for negative consequences and worst-case scenarios. The study also contributes to the effectuation literature by introducing the use of effectuation as an analytical framework for research on a peculiar category of decisions, i.e., decisions under ignorance.