Contextualizing the career success of Arab women entrepreneurs

Hayfaa A. Tlaiss

Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 2019, vol. 31, issue 3-4, 226-241

Abstract: Drawing on institutional theory, this study gives voice to Arab women entrepreneurs. Through contextualization and in-depth, semi-structured interviews, I examine Lebanese women entrepreneurs’ conceptualizations of career success, the mechanisms they use to realize it and their overall awareness of it. According to the findings, the entrepreneurs experience career success as an act of disobedience against socially imposed cultural and gender mandates. Furthermore, career success evolves as a contextual, dynamic process that is culturally dependent but individually negotiated, interpreted and constructed using external and internal conceptualizations. In turn, these conceptualizations are intertwined with agency and unfold as a process at the intersection of gender, patriarchy and cultural values. Accordingly, I argue against reducing career success to static, objective and subjective criteria. Doing so undermines the complexity and processual nature of the construct and neglects the importance of cultural values in shaping the understanding and experience of career success in different societies. I also stress the importance of contextualizing women’s entrepreneurial experiences and demonstrate that Lebanese women entrepreneurs’ conceptualizations of career success reflect both Arab social-cognitive and normative institutions and their own agency.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/08985626.2018.1551790 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:entreg:v:31:y:2019:i:3-4:p:226-241

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TEPN20

DOI: 10.1080/08985626.2018.1551790

Access Statistics for this article

Entrepreneurship & Regional Development is currently edited by Professor Alistair Anderson

More articles in Entrepreneurship & Regional Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().