The Gendering of Entrepreneurship on Reality Television

Abstract

Research on gender inequalities in entrepreneurship focuses more often on identifying or overcoming existing barriers rather than examining how stereotypical gendered beliefs and characterizations are created or maintained in the first place. We argue that the media provides a contextualized and sociocultural perspective into the gendering of entrepreneurship. Using a novel multimethod approach based on media framing analysis, we examine the content and social interactions portrayed during the first season of the reality television program Shark Tank to deconstruct the processes that normalize and reinforce gendered stereotypes and inequalities.

Does gender balance in entrepreneurship education make a difference to prospective start-up behaviour?

“…Although gender bias still favours masculinity (Lewis and Simpson, 2012), we suggest that among students in a class where the entrepreneurship discourse is on the agenda, the masculine norm will also be discussed and challenged, particularly in more gender-balanced classes. This could help to reduce the gendered stereotypes found in contexts where entrepreneurship is promoted (Malmstr€ om et al, 2017;Wheadon and Duval-Couetil, 2019b).…”

“…For a long time, this has impacted how we understand entrepreneurship as a phenomenon and, hence, who considers themselves as potential entrepreneurs (e.g. Ahl, 2002; Wheadon and Duval-Couetil, 2019b).…”

Perceptual factors explaining the gender gap in entrepreneurial propensity: A replication and extension

“…More research is needed to explore how role models in different types of media, including social media, impact perceptual differences between men and women and how this influences entrepreneurial propensity. One example of such research would be to investigate how entrepreneurial impressions created through TV shows such as Shark Tank (Wheadon and Duval-Couetil, 2019;Smith and Viceisza, 2018) or through Twitter (Fisch and Block, 2021;Obschonka et al, 2017) and crowdfunding platforms (Anglin et al, 2018) influence the entrepreneurial perceptions of men and women differently. Again, field or laboratory experimental research could help to answer this question.…”

Pay attention to me! The role of endorsements, patents, gender and prior experience in startup media attention

“…Studies consistently show gender bias in the media coverage of politics, business and entertainment (Aaldering and Van Der Pas, 2020; Shor et al. , 2019) and a perpetuation of entrepreneurial gender stereotypes in televised media (Wheadon and Duval-Couetil, 2019). As such, we expect that the media will perceive female entrepreneurs as having less entrepreneurial competence and lower potential performance, making their ventures riskier to cover.…”