Women-focused entrepreneurial support organizations: creating change in entrepreneurial ecosystems through building gender capital?

Abstract

Despite implementation of policies and programs aimed to increase women’s participation, there is still a significant gap in the percentage of women owned businesses compared to men. We explore how a women-focused entrepreneurial support organization (ESO) builds gender capital and how it might contribute to generating change and creating more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). We adopt a Bourdieusian lens and a qualitative case study approach interviewing 18 participants associated with a local ESO in Saskatchewan, Canada (Women Entrepreneurs of Saskatchewan). Findings reveal that the ESO does contribute to building gender capital with an emphasis on cultural and social capital. This findings also raise additional questions. First, the extent to which some of the work of this ESO is reinforcing a masculine norm is unclear, as well as the policy implications of this (e.g., focus upon scaling up as a measure of success). Second, women entrepreneurs are not a heterogeneous group and it is challenging for one organization to generate gender capital in ways which account for women entrepreneurs’ varied experiences and motivations.