Efe Imiren

A CONCEPTUAL OVERVIEW OF INSTITUTIONS AS BIPARTRATE IN PERPETUATING THE VULNERABILITY OF FEMALE DIGITAL ENTREPRENEURS

Efe Imiren

Introduction

Female entrepreneurship has continued to develop around the world, over the last decade, digitalisation has significantly increased opportunities for some women; as a range of tools enhance their ability to develop independent businesses. Whilst institutions can constrain some forms of entrepreneurship, they are also enablers as they provide resources for navigating enterprise pathways and providing frameworks for tackling challenges. In the same vein, institutions could perpetuate vulnerability by the constraints imposed through the underdevelopment or lack of institutions. Too often, in such cases, traditional roles and processes are reproduced with limited room for innovative change. Although institutions have been addressed in terms of their impact on female digital entrepreneurs, little connection has been made between institutions and their bipartrate role in the vulnerability of female digital entrepreneurs. This paper contributes to the debate as one of the emerging attempts to provide a conceptual review on debates at the intersection of vulnerability, female digital entrepreneurship, and institutions.

In this paper, a narrative literature review method is used to map structural barriers argued to impact on female entrepreneurs

thus touching on the dimensions of vulnerability in female digital entrepreneurship. The findings contribute to suggestions for programmatic and policy engagement to support women to access inclusive and dignified careers through enterprise and entrepreneurship that builds on the success of female entrepreneurs who have gone before them.

The rest of the paper is organised as follows: first the theoretical background at the intersection of vulnerability, institutions and digitalisation is presented, next a narrative review of the impact of institutions as bipartrate is developed to present a conceptual overview of vulnerability in female digital entrepreneurship. Whilst the conceptual overview shows that institutions reproduce normative societal realities for female entrepreneurs, the study concludes that female entrepreneurs navigate the vulnerability posed by the bipartrate impact of institutions drawing on innovative and creative actions to lead novel enterprises through digitalisation.

Theoretical Background: Vulnerability, Institutions and Digitalisation

Entrepreneurial discourse acknowledges the cultural and economic marginalities (Darkwah, 2007) females navigate in the business sphere. Females are often denied access to capital, face increased challenges in relation to security, bare the emotional labour of family chores, care of the elderly and childcare and the sole responsibility of childbirth (McDowell, 2011; Elson, 1999). However, the homogenous perspective that all women are relegated to the fringes of society because of lack of access to rights, resources, and opportunities is changing (Dzisi, 2008), it is important to recognise the “effects of the complex, multiple, and shifting layers of institutional contexts in which they are embedded” (Langevang et al., 2015, p. 449). There are a number of successful, high achieving females in entrepreneurship; many have broken glass ceilings and worked efficiently in male dominated sectors. Yet, millions of female entrepreneurs are limited by the environmental and societal

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challenges (Cavada et al., 2018; Dos Santos et al., 2019) they face and are obliged to tackle problems their male counterparts will not, see examples from Saudi Arabia (McAdam, Harrison and Leitch, 2019), Tanzania (Naegels, Mori and D’Espallier, 2018), Peru (Rezaei and Marques, 2021).

The term vulnerability is adapted to suit different disciplinary frameworks quite widely (Heijmans, 2013). It often refers to physical or economic susceptibilities such as exposure to natural disasters, economic deprivation, and health risks. As noted by Adger, (2006, p. 268), “vulnerability is the state of susceptibility to harm from exposure to stresses associated with environmental and social change” thus vulnerability is linked to exposure to harmful practices associated with the social and environmental context of the one experiencing such susceptibilities. Following this logic, it is arguable that within given contexts individuals are vulnerable in one way or another and given the planet as a context, there is an increasing focus on the fragility of the shared planet, its limited resources and the way societal hierarchies and structures restrict access for individuals in different contexts (Butler, 2018; Diamond, 2013). However, the literature focusses more on the vulnerability of the people and less on critical examination of the systemic nature of the precarity embedded in societies (Heijmans, 2013). Female entrepreneurs have proven to be rather resourceful and innovative drawing upon informal institutional networks and genius innovation to succeed where systems have not functioned in a way to provide business support (Webb, Khoury and Hitt, 2020). It is thus important to understand how the gaps created by institutional voids (Mair and Marti, 2009) open channels of opportunity in spaces characterised by vulnerable economic and social structures that limit economic activity.

Institutions support interpersonal, communal and societal interactions, they provide guides on the normative structures that ought to support humans interactions; in so doing they also constrain and limit the set of choices available to individuals (North,

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1991; Aidis et al., 2007) in order to govern excessive inequities. Institutions are enduring social structures and they could be formal, informal or cognitive (Scott, 2001). Institutions influence social life in that the normative dimension impacts on the social obligation whilst the cognitive dimension is the shared social reality through which individuals make sense of their perceived reality (Scott, 2001; Amine; Staub, 2009; Gohar; Abrar, 2016). Thus, through social obligation and shared social reality, entrepreneurial behaviours are regulated by the normative and cognitive institutions which govern the socialisation process (Ritchie, 2016).

The absence of institutions implies the presence of institutional voids which poses barriers to entrepreneurship and represent situations of non-existent, weak or malfunctioning institutions for supporting entrepreneurship (Elert and Henrekson, 2017; McAdam et al., 2018; Khanna and Palepu, 2010; Mair and Marti, 2009). Although institutional voids manifest in weak or unsupportive institutional environments which constrain entrepreneurial behaviour and outcome (McAdam, Crowley and Harrison, 2018), institutional voids also enable entrepreneurship, for example, an entrepreneur can introduce a new product or service in an unregulated market (Elert and Henrekson, 2017) causing the emergence of permission-less innovation (Thierer, 2016).

The institutional regulation of entrepreneurial behaviour through digitalisation is on the rise (Gartner Group, 2016; Tilson, Lyytinen and Sørensen, 2010; Rachinger et al., 2018. Digitalisation has transformed the world of work, giving rise to alterations that allow for richer participation from females as a result of the flexibility associated with digital entrepreneurship and the fact that the resulting digital jobs and enterprise could be less labour intensive (Berg et al 2018). Thus, digitalisation has improved access to entrepreneurial platforms for women in many middle and low–income countries. However, extant research suggests that the barriers that make female entrepreneurs vulnerable to societal expectations are replicated on digital platforms (Marlow and McAdam, 2013; Acker, 1992).

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Institutions and female digital entrepreneurs

The bipartite role of institutions in perpetuating the vulnerability of female digital entrepreneurs is developed through a narrative review of the following studies: Luo and Chan, (2021), Pergelova et al. (2019), McAdam, Crowley and Harrison (2019). This is selective narrative overview serves as a precursor to further studies at the intersection of vulnerability and female digital entrepreneurs.

In a study on the gendering of digital workspaces, Luo and Chan, (2021, p. 1) note that digitalisation has led to restructuring which has led to a focus on “enterprise culture” precipitating the boom of female digital entrepreneurship globally. Thus, there is a rise in the proportion of female entrepreneurs undertaking entrepreneurship digitally. The empirical location of the study which is China is considered “the largest internet market” “with over 904 million” users and a 64.5% penetration rate with female entrepreneurs accounting for over 55% of digital entrepreneurs in China. Luo and Chan (2021, p. 1) argue that while extant research shows that digitalisation enables “flexible working times and spaces” for female entrepreneurs, “further research is needed to understand whether subordination is reproduced for female digital entrepreneurs. Although Dy, Marlow and Martin, (2017) made a similar argument, Dy, Marlow and Martin, (2017) suggested that barriers are replicated online whilst Luo and Chan, (2021) specifically focused on understanding whether the particular barrier of subordination is reproduced online. However, Luo and Chan (2021) suggest that further empirical research is needed from a feminist geography standpoint.

Acknowledging that “without a digital focus, female entrepreneurial literature reports the subordination of women’s businesses” Luo and Chan, (2021, p. 2), the authors found that vulnerability was perpetuated through under-representation and reproduction of gendered division of work which led to subordination of female digital entrepreneurs.

Under-representation stemmed from low intentions (Luo and Chan, 2021). Whilst most start-up teams had female entrepreneurs,

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these women rarely became chief executive officers (CEO) as these women worked on “auxiliary duties such as human resources, logistics, and administration” Luo and Chan, (2021, p.4). Such low leadership rate the authors argued was linked to low intentions as they argued that not intending to be in leadership position keeps the entrepreneur out of these leadership positions. Entrepreneurial intentions have been argued elsewhere to impact on the choice of entrepreneurship as a career and on the advancement or success of the enterprise and the entrepreneur (Lee et al., 2011) and linked to gender entrepreneurial intentions are impacted by institutions (Wilson, Kickul and Marlino, 2007).

Luo and Chan (2021) argue that the businesses of female digital entrepreneurs are the reproduction of gendered division of work. As noted by the authors the businesses ran by these entrepreneurs were positioned in fields regarded as feminine, such as education, healthcare, and content provision. Linked to the argument of work experience and human capital as a source entrepreneurs draw from (Marvel, Davis and Sproul, 2016), Luo and Chan, (2021, p. 4) found the transition of female entrepreneurs into digital entrepreneurship could be traced to extant work experience. Furthermore, the reproduction of gendered division of work in the business is linked to woman’s role as caregivers and this precipitates long working hours which Luo and Chan (2021) argue illustrates how the socialization of the female entrepreneur to identify as women conflicts with their role as entrepreneurs to produce the subordination of the women as female digital entrepreneurs.

The role of institutions can be seen in the study by (Pergelova et al., 2019). The authors note that female entrepreneurs are less likely to engage in international activities when compared to their male counterparts, thus in Bulgaria, the context of the study only 13% of female entrepreneurs engage in exporting their products and services. The author thus explore how digitalisation enables export and thus internalisation of the female entrepreneurs enterprise. As noted by Pergelova et al. (2019, p. 15) digitalisation impacts on the internationalisation of an enterprise and such impact is more

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evident “for traditionally disadvantaged groups of entrepreneurs such as women entrepreneurs”. Furthermore, noting that those voids emerge when the institutional framework within an institutional context is lacking or underdeveloped, McAdam, Crowley and Harrison (2019) argued that the presence of voids generate cultures which are non-supportive of the entrepreneurial process which could impact negatively on the female entrepreneur, their legitimacy and thus access to resources. Whilst the reason why culture influences the entrepreneurs actions within the entrepreneurial process remains underexplored, digital entrepreneurship has been argued to enable the navigation of “unsupportive cultural practices” in an institutional context. McAdam, Crowley and Harrison (2019) thus found that female digital entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia navigated the unsupportive practice of gender segregation by working online and using male secretaries.

Conceptual Overview

Gendered stereotypes have been reproduced for centuries by the many forms of organisational and governance structures that shape society (Naegels Mori; D’Espallier 2018)) democratic representation has been useful in highlighting how discrimination against females have hindered societal development and exacerbated vulnerabilities. Yet gendered concepts of cognition, emotion, psychology, learning, endurance and courage materialise in the practice and processes of normative institutions from access to capital through to leadership. The persuasive relic of female dependence often reproduced in the postures, identities appearances and dreams of women as well as the behaviours they perceive as acceptable (Rezaei and Marques, 2021). Institutions enable and sometimes constrain or serve to restrict female entrepreneurial engagement and development because they sometimes unwittingly create traditional systemic hierarchies and reproduce the systemic discrimination of female entrepreneurs. There are no obvious unique institutional constraints dissociated from familiar sociocultural, political and everyday economic

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realities. Though female participation in entrepreneurial activity is broad and well established, it remains superficial (Urbano, Aparicio and Audretsch, 2019). Too often, female digital entrepreneurs still need to contend with reproduced challenges. The emotional labour of providing care and support to the young and elderly, which characterise the highest forms of vulnerability to the ecosystem of productive entrepreneurship are still largely female – led (Terjesen and Lloyd, 2015).

Nevertheless, the literature shows it is important to include context in analysing the impact of institutions and that research should account for individual level of analysis in accounting for the complexities posed by institutions. Whilst the argument that context matters has been made elsewhere in studies on female entrepreneurs, the argument in relation to vulnerability, institutions and female entrepreneurship is new and/or an emerging view.

Conclusion

This narrative overview provides insights of how institutions enable female digital entrepreneurship. Whilst there is evidence underpinning the argument that institutions have played a bipartite role empowering and disempowering female digital entrepreneurs, institutions are prone to reproducing normative societal realities, often posing as negative impacts to the very purpose of the organisations. To counteract the negating impact, it is important to enhance the development of broader representation within institutions and promote discussions and studies that expose various dimensions of vulnerability and the ideas, practices and structures that enable the perpetuation of vulnerability. Whilst acknowledging the complexity of dealing with such complicated threats to vulnerability (Terjesen and Lloyd, 2015), it is important to analyse in a systematic way the factors and interactions that allow the continued experience of vulnerability amongst female digital entrepreneurs. The mixed evidence from this study suggests that some institutions with strong links to multiple structures of business support are more likely to be

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effective in developing female entrepreneurs whilst the innovative and creative action of some female entrepreneurs have also led to radical start-ups and novel models drawing strongly upon the support from informal structures.

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