Of resistance to patriarchy and occupation through a virtual bazaar: an institutional theory critique of the emancipatory potential of Palestinian women’s digital entrepreneurship
基于对巴勒斯坦女性创业者的深度访谈，研究发现数字技术虽帮助她们创业，但不利的制度环境将其限制在家庭式女性企业，并带来额外挑战、健康问题和敌意，挑战了数字创业能解放女性的观点。
This study explores how institutional contexts and digital technologies influence women’s digital entrepreneurship and emancipation potential in the conflict-laden, Arab country-specific context of Palestine. Drawing on insights from Institutional Theory and emancipation literature, we capitalize on in-depth, semi-structured online interviews with Palestinian women entrepreneurs. Accordingly, we present empirical evidence demonstrating that while digital technologies enabled Palestinian women to launch their enterprises, the unsupportive institutional contexts confined them to home-based, feminine enterprises and subjected them to a toll of additional challenges, health issues and hostility. Our findings challenge the claim that digital entrepreneurship emancipates women by showcasing the context-specific nature of emancipation. This paper advances entrepreneurship research by demonstrating how Arab women’s digital entrepreneurship unfolds at the intersection between emancipatory enablers and unique, conflict-laden regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutional pillars.