Never Too Late to Learn: How Education Helps Female Entrepreneurs at Overcoming Barriers in the Digital Economy

Abstract

The study of Entrepreneurship Framework Conditions (EFC) has found that training and education have, among other things, a positive effect on overcoming barriers when starting your own firm. Our research can be placed in this line, but with an added specificity, since it is focused firstly on women and secondly on the digital economy. Thus, we have studied the situation of women entrepreneurs in the digital economy in Spain, asking them about their personal traits, the characteristics of their ventures and the barriers they encountered. We have studied the effect of EFCs on overcoming barriers to entrepreneurship, with a special focus on training and entrepreneurship education. In addition, the effect of self-efficacy perception (the conviction of having the necessary skills to start a business) on overcoming barriers to entrepreneurship has been factored in. After the implementation of a Structural Equation Model (SEM), we show that training helps female entrepreneurs in the digital economy to overcome barriers to entrepreneurship, especially after the mediation of their self-efficacy perception, which is increased by specific entrepreneurial training. We can conclude that policy recommendations to counteract the gender gap in entrepreneurship with specific training should be promoted, specifically in such a strategic sector as the digital economy.

Female digital entrepreneurship: a structured literature review

“…Despite the recent efforts in promoting DE for females, many studies show that female entrepreneurs are encountering obstacles to starting their businesses (Dobrilovic et al, 2021;Molina-L opez et al, 2021;Pappas et al, 2018). Studies under this group discuss how the gender gap, cultural norms, and absence of role models are barriers that negatively influence the interest in pursuing an entrepreneurial career path for female entrepreneurs in Greece (Pappas et al, 2018), Serbia (Dobrilovic et al, 2021), and Spain Along with the previously mentioned barriers, employed females in Greece are also facing perception of a glass ceiling (Pappas et al, 2018).…”

“…More specifically, the authors used in-depth interviews and single case studies to collect data McAdam, 2022a, 2022b;Lemaire et al, 2021;Luo and Chan, 2021;Martinez-Dy et al, 2017McAdam et al, 2019McAdam et al, , 2020. Literature review (Paoloni et al, 2019), conceptual paper (Martinez-Dy, 2019), mixed method paper (Pappas et al, 2018), and quantitative papers (Molina-L opez et al, 2021;Shukla et al, 2021) constitute the rest of the papers. However, a call exists for more quantitative research and multi-case studies to develop theories along with the commonly used methods (Zaheer et al, 2019).…”

“…However, a call exists for more quantitative research and multi-case studies to develop theories along with the commonly used methods (Zaheer et al, 2019). This review's major unit of analysis is female digital entrepreneurs (Dobrilovic et al, 2021;Martinez-Dy et al, 2017Lemaire et al, 2021;Luo and Chan, 2021;McAdam et al, 2019McAdam et al, , 2020Molina-L opez et al, 2021;Mora-Rodr ıguez et al, 2020;Paoloni et al, 2019;Wang and Keane, 2020;Wing-Fai, 2019). One study considered digital technologies and female digital entrepreneurs as its unit of analysis (Martinez-Dy, 2019), whereas the other studies took female university students as the unit of analysis (Shukla et al, 2021), and female ages 16 and older with at least basic computer literacy (Pappas et al, 2018).…”

Empreendedorismo feminino na economia criativa e seus desafios: um olhar sobre as competências

“…O artigo faz um avanço na literatura de empreendedorismo feminino na economia criativa. Primeiro, estende o conhecimento sobre a criação de novos empreendimentos criativos (Davidsson & Gruenhagen, 2021;Prado et al, 2022;Shepherd et al, 2021), uma área de investigação que ajuda as mulheres empreendedoras a superar as barreiras em que o treinamento e a educação têm, entre outras coisas, um efeito positivo na superação de barreiras na gestão do seu próprio negócio criativo (Molina-López et al, 2021). O empreendedorismo feminino é um motor de inclusão social (Rahman et al, 2021).…”

Theoretical framework and research prospect of the impact of China’s digital economic development on population

“…Based on the World Bank's pilot evaluation program, the overall development of the digital economy in different countries was evaluated, and the current challenges of the digital economy were put forward, which mainly include the priority sequence of digital diagnostics and the need for new technology problems, to provide advice to developing countries and relevant institutions (Nagy, 2020). Third, the impact of the digital economy on other regional factors was measured by exploring the impact of the digital economy on industry (Litvinenko, 2020), environment (Sui & Rejeski, 2002), public services (Adeyinka et al, 2020), innovation and entrepreneurship (Molina-Lopez et al, 2021), infrastructure (Adriaens and Ajami, 2021), government services (Banhidi et al, 2020), the real economy (Zhang et al, 2022), residents' income (Chen et al, 2020), employment (Sun et al, 2019), and so on.…”