Gender differences in entrepreneurial networking and participation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between an individual's personal acquaintance with an entrepreneur and his/her participation in entrepreneurial activity at three distinct new venture stages: discovery (intending to start a business), start‐up (actively in the process of starting a business), and young (running a business for less than three months). Design/methodology/approach Using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data from 35 countries ( n =311,720) pooled across three years (2002‐2004) and multinomial logistic regression, the paper examines the relationship between entrepreneurial networking and entrepreneurial participation across gender. Gender differences in entrepreneurial networking are also examined. Findings The findings indicate that individuals who personally know an entrepreneur are more likely to participate in entrepreneurial activity at any venture stage but that female entrepreneurs, compared with their male counterparts, are less likely to be acquainted with an entrepreneur. Taken together, these findings suggest that one of the reasons why women are less likely to become entrepreneurs is that they lack entrepreneurial resource providers or role models in their social networks. Research limitations/implications The paper is subject to two limitations. First, the paper includes a single item measure of social network composition. Second, although the paper includes data from 2000 to 2004, the dataset is cross‐sectional and is thus based on different cohorts of participants. The paper offers a number of implications for theory, practice, and future research. One of the most important implications is that female entrepreneurship participation could be enhanced by policy directed at promoting female entrepreneur role models and connecting women with entrepreneurs. Originality/value The paper utilizes a representative sample of 311,720 individuals in 35 countries. Entrepreneurs are classified as operating at three distinct phases of the entrepreneurial process: discovery, start‐up, and young and the relationship between entrepreneurial networking and entrepreneurship participation is examined within each of these phases.