An institutional perspective on borrowing discouragement among female-owned enterprises and the role of regional female empowerment

Juanita Kimiyo Forrester and François Neville

Journal of Business Venturing, 2021, vol. 36, issue 6

Abstract: We develop an institutional perspective to examine the important, albeit largely overlooked, occurrence of borrowing discouragement for female-owned enterprises: the likelihood that they will not seek business financing because they believe their requests will be rejected. Given a prevailing business logic casting the field of entrepreneurship as largely male-typed, we theorize that female-owned enterprises will be more likely than their male-owned counterparts to exhibit borrowing discouragement. However, we also further propose that gender-based borrowing discouragement will be influenced by female empowerment levels in three distinct indicators of female empowerment that vary by geographic region within a society: social and economic autonomy, reproductive rights, and political participation. We find strong support for our predictions using a unique multi-sourced sample of 4090 small businesses operating in the United States.

Keywords: Borrowing discouragement; Entrepreneurial finance; Entrepreneurship; Female entrepreneurship; Gender inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbvent:v:36:y:2021:i:6:s0883902621000665

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2021.106156

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