Accelerating alienation: gender and self-efficacy in the accelerator context
本研究通过访谈51位女性创始人和4位加速器管理者，揭示了加速器中男性化话语和文化如何导致女性创始人产生异化感，并阻碍其创业自我效能感的发展。
Purpose This study focuses on the lived experiences of early-stage women founders in a venture accelerator context. In particular, this work explores how gender shapes entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) development in early-stage female founders in the venture accelerator context. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative, feminist-sensitive research methodology was utilized, with empirical evidence drawn from interviews with fifty one female founders and four accelerator managers located in four, competitive accelerator programs located in the Northeastern United States. Findings Study findings highlight how accelerators contribute to ESE development. Data also shows how the micro-processes related to masculinized discourse, culture, as well as mentorship and training, contribute to the “othering” and minimization of women during early-stage venture development. Originality/value This study contributes to the accelerator literature through a provision of insights into the ways a dominant, masculinized discourse and culture alienates female participants, making them feel “othered’, and resulting in a lack of fit with critical networking and funding opportunities. Second, this study builds on self-efficacy theory by applying a gender lens to the areas of mastery learning, vicarious learning, social persuasion and mental state, thus illuminating ways that the masculinization of these processes negatively disrupts the ESE development of female founders. Third, this study builds more broadly on the women's entrepreneurship literature by showing how masculine norms and culture ultimately impact upon the well-being of women in an early-stage entrepreneurship context.