 Do (women’s) words matter? The influence of gendered language in entrepreneurial pitchingLakshmi Balachandra, Katrin Fischer and Candida Brush Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 2021, vol. 15, issue C Abstract: Women entrepreneurs consistently raise far less investor funding than men. In this study, we consider how women’s use of gender-similar language may influence investor decisions on venture pitches. Contrary to theories of communicative style and gender, we find women do not apply linguistic styles traditionally attributed to women in crafting their pitches. Instead, women entrepreneurs use language similar to their male counterparts when pitching to investors. Consistent with gender role congruity theory, we found that a masculine linguistic style is generally more effective in pitching situations, with limitations. Overly masculine language had a negative impact for both male and female entrepreneurs. Our findings suggest women entrepreneurs have a clear understanding of the power of the spoken language and the impact of the words they use when pitching investors for funding. Keywords: Entrepreneur pitches; Investor decisions; Linguistic style; Gender; Gender role congruity theory; Women’s entrepreneurship; Gender bias; Discourse theory (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jobuve:v:15:y:2021:i:c:s2352673421000020 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbvi.2021.e00224 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Business Venturing Insights is currently edited by Dimo Dimov More articles in Journal of Business Venturing Insights from Elsevier |
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