PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the factors impacting successful Iranian women entrepreneurs. The factors include: self‐efficacy, risk taking, negative stereotypes, and societal culture and traditions.Design/methodology/approachThe paper utilizes interviews conducted with a sample of successful Iranian women entrepreneurs and examines the challenges they had to overcome, as well as their success factors.FindingsChallenges caused by the negative stereotypes and traditions of Iranian society are barriers successful Iranian women entrepreneurs had to overcome. The possession of personal internal factors such as high levels of self‐efficacy and risk taking positively impacted these women's success.Research limitation/implicationsThe interviews were not conducted by the authors and were published in Farsi, so there may be interpretation and/or translation issues. However, there are few empirical studies on Iranian women entrepreneurs, and this research is one of the first that contributes to a better understanding of this important group of entrepreneurs. Further empirical research is needed to advance knowledge of Iranian women entrepreneurs.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the scarce knowledge about Iranian women entrepreneurship, by introducing readers to this unique subgroup of entrepreneurs. It represents a starting point to an important area of research.

Qualitative research is becoming increasingly popular in organisational studies. There is growing consensus that qualitative research contributes positively to the diversity of academic inquiry in entrepreneurship, advancing rich and novel insights about entrepreneurial phenomena. We conduct the first large-scale synthesis of the qualitative entrepreneurship research literature. Based on a sample of 460 articles published across 45 quality journals, we offer an in-depth analysis of the state of qualitative research in entrepreneurship and unearth specific patterns in common practices of published qualitative investigations. Our analysis reveals several potentially fruitful avenues for the continued application of qualitative approaches in entrepreneurship research (e.g. entrepreneur-opportunity nexus). Suggestions on why and how to use qualitative research are provided, and recommendations are offered to guide future qualitative studies to advance better understanding of entrepreneurial phenomena.

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