PurposeAlthough the percentage of female entrepreneurs has increased over the past several years, it is far below the level of males. Drawing on the theory of planned behaviour and role congruity theory, the purpose of this paper is to specify a model in which the relationship between gender and entrepreneurial intention (EI) is mediated by three essential motivational constructs (i.e. attitude toward starting a business, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control (PBC)).Design/methodology/approachThe study specifies and tests a meta‐analytical structural equation model. The study aggregates the results of 30 studies (n=52,367).FindingsThe study reveals a higher average EI for men compared to women. However, although significant, the gender differences in EI and the motivational constructs were small and cannot sufficiently explain the substantial differences in actually starting a business. Furthermore, moderator analyses show differences in the gender‐EI relationship between Europe and the US and between students and non‐students.Research limitations/implicationsDifferences between men and women seem to be a consequence of differences in turning intentions into implementation. Researchers are called upon to investigate gender differences in hindrances as a potential explanation for different implementations and when and why women give up their entrepreneurial plans. Moreover, future research should investigate further motivational processes beyond those suggested by the theory of planned behavior.Originality/valueThe study analyses the relationship between gender and EI and the results show a weak relationship which indicates that the higher number of male entrepreneurs cannot solely be explained by differences in motivation.

Despite considerable research, empirical findings on the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship (CE) (i.e., strategic renewal, innovation and corporate venturing) and performance remain inconclusive. Using a meta-analysis, the present paper synthesizes prior literature regarding the CE-performance relationship of 43 independent samples including 13,237 firms. Our results reveal that strategic renewal, innovation and corporate venturing positively influence overall, subjective and objective firm performance. In addition, we conduct moderator analyses to reflect on the context and to verify whether and how the relationships vary in the presence of several studyspecific factors. We find that innovation has a stronger effect on performance in high-tech as opposed to lowtech industries, and the association between corporate venturing and performance is the strongest in Europe (compared with North America and Asia). Against our theoretical predictions, we find the association between strategic renewal and performance to be stronger for larger than for smaller firms. Based on our results, we derive recommendations for future research and point to managerial implications.

The article conducts a meta–analysis on the relationship between internationalization and firm performance in international entrepreneurship. Empirical evidence from 15,648 internationalizing entrepreneurial firms nested in 43 independent samples reveals a positive relationship between degree and scope of internationalization and performance. Knowledge intensity positively moderates the relationship between speed of internationalization and performance and negatively moderates the scope of internationalization and performance association. In contrast, we neither find a relationship between speed of internationalization and performance nor for knowledge intensity's moderation on the degree of internationalization–performance association. Based on the findings, the article systematically points at future research opportunities.

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