This paper addresses the following questions: Are women entrepreneurs empowered by entrepreneurship, and critically, does entrepreneurship offer emancipation? Our theoretical position is that entrepreneurship is socially embedded and must be recognized as a social process with economic outcomes. Accordingly, questions of empowerment must take full account of the context in which entrepreneurship takes place. We argue that institutions—formal and informal, cultural, social, and political—create gendered contexts in the Global South, where women’s entrepreneurship is subjugated and treated as inferior and second class. Our thematic review of a broad scope of the literature demonstrates that in different regions of the Global South, women entrepreneurs confront many impediments and that this shapes their practices. We show how the interplay of tradition, culture, and patriarchy seem to conspire to subordinate their efforts. Yet, we also recognize how entrepreneurial agency chips away and is beginning to erode these bastions, in particular, how role models establish examples that undermine patriarchy. We conclude that entrepreneurship can empower but modestly and slowly. Some independence is achieved, but emancipation is a long, slow game.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on women’s entrepreneurship in emerging economies. This is a thematic review to identify patterns and trends to better understand this literature. From the analysis, this study offers ideas for useful and theoretically informed research. In addition, this paper proposes the concept of restricted agency that helps to explain the practice. Design/methodology/approach This study identifies the nature, what is interesting, what it sees as important and considers what is neglected in this literature. The analysis sought important issues, interesting directions and the potential for useful future work. Thematic analysis is ideal for messy and unstructured material such as the literature used in this study as the data set. The process is qualitative, iterative and inductive but ontologically appropriate for the socially produced knowledge of the literature. Findings This paper finds the literature tends towards descriptive papers. Few papers make substantial contributions to theory. Many papers reported the barriers women to encounter, reporting general and typical processes of responding to obstacles and the implications for practice. Interestingly this study perceives overcoming and sometimes using, the cultural and physical restraints of gendered entrepreneurship. This paper proposes the concept of restricted agency explaining the gendering of entrepreneurs and explains what they can do. Moreover, the concept helps explain why and what. Most promising theoretically, is how the application of this agency is slowly and contextually differently changing the rules of the game. Research limitations/implications This study covers a large and extensive literature, so might have missed themes. Originality/value This paper starts with the notion of the “otherness” of women’s entrepreneurship. The literature is good at explaining both how and why women’s entrepreneurship is different and in effect, marginalised. This study conceptualises this gendering process as a restricted agency. Moreover, the concept helps explain why and what. Most promising theoretically, is how the application of this agency is slowly and contextually differently changing the rules of the game. It may be the mechanism for emancipation.

PurposeThe aim of this study is to better understand how black women utilize capital to frame their entrepreneurial identities in order to become legitimate and thus challenge institutional norms. To achieve this, the study draws on perspectives on legitimacy, identity and capital and focuses on the well-established wine industry in South Africa.Design/methodology/approachUsing in-depth qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, this study delves into the lived experiences of nine black women entrepreneurs and three stakeholders in the South African wine industry. Such a context is unique because of the aspects of exclusion and segregation of black women. The data were supplemented with associated secondary material and were analysed using the constant comparative technique.FindingsThis study reveals dissonance, that is, a misfit, between black women's social identities and their entrepreneurial self-identities in the South African wine industry; the study uncovers that specific capital forms allow framing their identity through heroical self-description, exploiting professionalism and enacting new roles to alter the perception of what is socially legitimate in the wine industry.Originality/valueThis study contributes to understanding by highlighting that black women entrepreneurs in the wine industry rebel against the expectation that they must fit into a predetermined role. The study highlights the relevance of legitimacy, identity and capital theoretical perspectives to study an underexplored context and unpack how black women challenge the barriers that affect their entrepreneurial identities in their quest to become legitimate. The value of this study revolves around revealing the underexplored connection between entrepreneurial identity and legitimacy through actions taken by black women entrepreneurs when reworking the role(s) tied to their social identities. The findings suggest the importance of capital, particularly cultural capital, in how black women entrepreneurs become legitimate in the wine industry. Avenues for further research are offered.