Why Do Women Entrepreneurs Behave Dominantly in the Workplace, and What Does It Mean?: A Family Embeddedness Perspective

Abstract

Over the past few decades, a growing number of women have been becoming entrepreneurs and assuming a greater percentage of leader roles in the world. In this research, we develop a model, grounded in a family embeddedness perspective and expectancy violations theory, that explores why and when women entrepreneurs behave dominantly in the workplace, and what consequences this pattern produces. We propose that when a female entrepreneur is the primary income earner at home, she is more likely to behave dominantly in the workplace, and subsequently, her workplace dominance is positively related to subjective firm performance. Less industry experience strengthens the positive relationship between being the primary income earner and workplace dominance, and further accentuates the indirect effect of being the primary income earner on subjective firm performance through workplace dominance. Data collected from 58 women entrepreneurs and 271 members of their top management teams in China through a two-wave survey support our hypotheses.