Abstract
The spur of innovative startups has provided an unprecedented opportunity for female entrepreneurship. However, the mainstream literature on startups has elaborated a gender performance gap hypothesis. Considering the speed of technological, social, and cultural changes that have taken place in this millennium, we wonder if this gap can still be found today, with particular reference to new technology-based ventures. A financial analysis has been conducted on a sample of innovative Italian startups, and the following variables have been used to assess the company’s success: (i) size, (ii) profitability, (iii) efficiency, (iv) financial structure, and (v) financial management. Our results reveal that as far as financial performance is concerned, innovative female-led startups do not lag behind male ones in terms of dimension, company profitability, efficiency, and financial management. However, findings confirmed, even for our sample, that female businesses raise, on average, a lower amount of financial resources in comparison to men.
Highlights
Female businesses are one of the fastest growing entrepreneurial populations in the world, and can make significant contributions to the innovation, employment, and wealth creation of all economies around the world (Brush et al 2009; Hughes et al 2012; Jennings and Brush 2013; Block et al 2017).They offer an answer in terms of self-employment to overcome the crisis of unemployment afflicting certain economies.the empowerment of women in the main entrepreneurial ecosystems (Berger and Kuckertz 2016) is still contained in both the more developed and emerging countries, never exceeding18% of the population of startups (Startup Genome 2018)
Our results reveal that as far as financial performance is concerned, innovative female-led startups do not lag behind male ones in terms of dimension, company profitability, efficiency, and financial management
Our findings reveal that as far as financial performance is concerned, innovative female-led startups do not lag behind male ones in terms of dimension, company profitability, efficiency, and financial management
Summary
Female businesses are one of the fastest growing entrepreneurial populations in the world, and can make significant contributions to the innovation, employment, and wealth creation of all economies around the world (Brush et al 2009; Hughes et al 2012; Jennings and Brush 2013; Block et al 2017).They offer an answer in terms of self-employment to overcome the crisis of unemployment afflicting certain economies.the empowerment of women in the main entrepreneurial ecosystems (Berger and Kuckertz 2016) is still contained in both the more developed and emerging countries, never exceeding18% of the population of startups (Startup Genome 2018). The fact that women do not actively participate in the economic growth of GDP is undoubtedly a loss of wealth, and of competitiveness, especially in a knowledge economy in which the entrepreneurial capital is increasingly a precious resource for the development of a country (Erikson 2002; Demartini and Paoloni 2014). Another interesting aspect, to emphasise the contribution that women can make to a knowledge economy, is that in most advanced economies (but ), the level of female education is comparable to that of men. It has grown in areas of knowledge known as disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), which is traditionally a male domain (Beede et al 2011)
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