Linguistic discrimination in start-up counselling

Abstract

The foundation of a company places high demands on the people who found it. By consequence, they often ask for counselling services, especially in the initial phase. At the same time, the ratio of start-ups by men and women remains largely unchanged at 2:1 in Germany. Arguably, this ratio is promoted by start-up counselling. Based on this presumption, we ask whether gender-related discrimination already occurs during the first contact in the start-up counselling. We evaluate findings from e-mail returns from fictitious enquiries to start-up counselling institutions with the help of established linguistic categories. Our results reveal various discriminatory tendencies and at the same time open up new approaches to research.