This study investigates the possible funding gap for women-owned compared with menowned new businesses. With longitudinal data from new businesses in Norway, gender differences in funding perceptions and behaviors, as well as in actually obtained amounts of funding, are explored. While there are few detected gender differences with respect to funding perceptions and behavior, women obtain significantly less financial capital to develop their new businesses. Moreover, the results indicate that the lower levels of financial capital that women business founders achieve are associated with lower early business growth compared with their male counterparts.

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Building on studies that have stressed the importance of context and the role of the family in business growth, this study explores the role of the entrepreneurial household in the process of business development and growth. We seek to understand how household strategy influences the development of new businesses, the ways in which household characteristics and dynamics influence business growth strategy decisions, and how business portfolios are managed and developed by the household. To examine these questions, comparative case studies were undertaken drawing data from four entrepreneurial households located in remote rural regions of Norway and Scotland. The data reveals the role of the entrepreneurial household in the evolution of business creation and growth, examining the processual aspects of entrepreneurial growth, the interactions between business activities and entrepreneurial households, and how business portfolios are developed in practice. Three analytical themes emerged from the analyses: the tightly interwoven connections between the business and the household; the use of family and kinship relations as a business resource base; and how households mitigate risk and uncertainty through self-imposed growth controls. While prior studies have viewed entrepreneurial growth largely as an outcome of personal ambition and business strategy, these results reveal the importance of the entrepreneurial household and the household strategy in determining business growth activities.

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to present a framework for research on gender and innovation. The framework is developed based on a review of the current literature in the area; it is applied to provide a context for the articles in this special issue and to offer suggestions for future research. Design/methodology/approach – The article relies on a literature review of gender and innovation. Additional literature searches on Scopus were conducted to provide an overview of the area. In addition, comparative analogies are sought from research fields of gender and entrepreneurship as well as gender and technology. Findings – The article presents the scope and issues in the current research on gender and innovation. Based on the overview, research in this area is conducted in various disciplines applying a variety of methodological approaches. In order to make sense of the current research, the paper developed a framework consisting of various approaches to, gender and innovation; these include gender as a variable, construction and process and innovation as a result, process and discourse. Research limitations/implications – Based on the review, several recommendations for future research are made. First, future research should question the connection between technology and innovation and purposefully seek innovation activity also in low-tech and service sectors and firms. Innovation scholars and policy makers should not primarily target radical and product innovations but should be equally interested in incremental and process innovations. Second, understanding women's innovation activity needs to be embedded in understanding the normative frames and structural factors at play. A particular theoretical call is linked to the study of power and innovation. Third, it is imperative to develop and apply new methodological approaches and new operationalizations of innovation and innovators. Practical implications – By focusing on gender and innovation, it is possible to discover innovation as a gender biased phenomenon. Policy makers should bear this in mind when developing innovation policies. Social implications – An understanding of innovation literature and innovation policy as gender biased has important social implications. Discovering gendered structures is important to further develop gender equal societies. Further, innovation may be hampered by biases in the understanding of the concept, including gender biases. Originality/value – This introductory article puts forward a framework on gender and innovation that helps to make sense of the current state-of-the-art and to develop new research questions that need to be addressed for further theorising within the field.

This study adopts a gender perspective to analyze funding decisions made by an investment fund that invests equity stakes in new ventures. Prior research has indicated that there is gender skewness in risk capital investments resulting from a combination of demand‐ and supply‐side issues. We apply signaling theory to examine the interface between demand and supply to understand gender biases related to risk capital investments. In‐depth analyses of decision documents from four investment cases show that gender plays a role in the signals that are communicated in the prefunding entrepreneur–investor relationship.