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Revisiting the entrepreneur gender–performance relationship: a firm perspective

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Abstract

Research shows that firms started by women underperform those started by men but the relationship may not be as straightforward as previously thought. Using a sample of 4,540 Korean ventures in 2002 we investigated the effects of three firm characteristics—resources, industry, and regional location—on firm performance. Results indicate that firms started by male entrepreneurs, compared to female, have greater firm assets, compete in high-technology manufacturing industries, and are more likely to locate in clustered regions. Further, these firm characteristics are positively associated with domestic and international firm performance. Findings suggest firm resource and context characteristics fully mediate the entrepreneur gender–firm performance relationship. Overall, gender is not a determinant of domestic or international firm performance.

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Notes

  1. Since we cannot take logarithm of zero, we added a constant of 0.1 in order to retain those observations with zero value (Maitland et al. 2005).

  2. We could not find any evidence of multicollinearity in our empirical analyses, because the VIF statistics and condition numbers for the independent and control variables were less than the popularly accepted critical values of 10 and 20, respectively.

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  1. Department of Management, Quinlan School of Business, Loyola University Chicago, 820 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL, 60611, USA

    In Hyeock Lee

  2. Department of Management, College of Business and Economics, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 26506, USA

    Matthew R. Marvel

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  1. In Hyeock Lee
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Lee, I.H., Marvel, M.R. Revisiting the entrepreneur gender–performance relationship: a firm perspective. Small Bus Econ 42, 769–786 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-013-9497-5

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