Tribal Origin and Gender: Identity Work in Women's Entrepreneurial Journey in Saudi Arabia

Eidah Alzahrani, Jillian Gordon, Cristina Diaz‐Garcia and Sabina Keston‐Siebert

Gender, Work and Organization, 2026, vol. 33, issue 1, 41-58

Abstract: Women entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia face significant challenges: legal, regulatory, social, and others related to the traditional family norms. Despite these constraints, many women succeed. Using a social constructionist feminist lens, we analyze the experiences of 27 women entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia, focusing on their ethnic/tribal origin and related religious ideology to answer the question: How do Saudi women from tribal origin develop an entrepreneurial identity? Through a qualitative‐interpretivist approach, we explore the narratives of women from tribal origins who start businesses and examine how their tribal and gender identities shape their entrepreneurial identity. Using the metatheoretical framework of liminality, we identify three phases of entrepreneurial identity formation for tribal women: separation, transition, and incorporation. We discuss the conditions prompting separation from their tribal and gender identity, the dynamics of identity work during the transition phase, and the issues faced in the incorporation phase. Our findings offer new insights into identity work in entrepreneurship by analyzing the interplay between gender and tribalism, we show that women from tribal backgrounds encounter great barriers and engage in identity work to incorporate their entrepreneurial identity.

Date: 2026
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