The Role of Gender in Entrepreneur–Investor Relationships: A Signaling Theory Approach

Abstract

This study adopts a gender perspective to analyze funding decisions made by an investment fund that invests equity stakes in new ventures. Prior research has indicated that there is gender skewness in risk capital investments resulting from a combination of demand‐ and supply‐side issues. We apply signaling theory to examine the interface between demand and supply to understand gender biases related to risk capital investments. In‐depth analyses of decision documents from four investment cases show that gender plays a role in the signals that are communicated in the prefunding entrepreneur–investor relationship.

Does Love Money Affect Vocational Behavior? Empirical Evidence from Italian Entrepreneurs

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Policy Support for Women Entrepreneurs’ Access to Financial Capital: Evidence from Canada, Germany, Ireland, Norway, and the United States

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Determinants of female entrepreneurship success across Saudi Arabia

“…However, research findings examining gender differences have shown contradicting results (Langowitz & Minniti, 2007;Wilson, Kickul, & Marlino, 2007); some investigators have found gender differences in entrepreneurial intention (Moore & Buttner, 1997;Zhao, Seibert, & Hills, 2005), but others have failed to confirm such differences (Calderon, Iacovone, & Juarez, 2017;Gupta, Turban, Wasti, & Skidar, 2009). Although most Western countries perform similarly in supporting female entrepreneurship, the US performs the best on indicators of good institutional support and strong overall entrepreneurial environment support for females (Alsos & Ljunggren, 2017;Dell Report, 2013). Currently, there are 8.6 million female-led businesses in the US, generating more than $1.3 trillion in revenues and employing nearly 8 million people (Casserly, 2013).…”