Research in the World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development has investigated the effects on the COVID-19 pandemic on entrepreneurialism and gender differences in the propensity of business people to start a new venture during this period.
The COVID-19 pandemic is both health and social crisis, financial disruptor, and unpredictable disaster that has affected us all and in the current context, the entire global economy.
Now, Dafna Kariv of the Adelson School of Entrepreneurship at Reichman University (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel, Rico J. Baldegger of the School of Management Fribourg (HEG-FR) at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO) in Fribourg, Switzerland, and Gavriela Kashy-Rosenbaum of the Multidisciplinary Department of Social Sciences at Ashkelon Academic College in Kfar-Hanagid, Israel, explain that the pandemic took entrepreneurs by surprise. Moreover, the shock affects women entrepreneurs, they add, to a greater degree. However, the details of that initial pandemic shock have not yet been explored. The team hoped to consider the gendered perceptions of opportunity, fear of failure, and motivations before and during the pandemic to explore what impact these had on the propensity to start a business during the crisis.
The researchers used the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) datasets covering 2019 and 2020 to help them answer their questions. Their findings suggest that while the pandemic affected women entrepreneurs more severely than men, women perceived greater opportunities during the pandemic that were more tightly enmeshed with financial motivators.
“The full impact of COVID-19 on entrepreneurial launches is still unknown as we are in the midst of the crisis,” the team writes. And yet, they add, “Research has shown that launching new businesses is a critical response for recovery from crises…[this is] even more important for women-led entrepreneurial businesses, as these are depicted as smaller and less growth-oriented than those run by men in normal times.”
The team suggests that their work opens up several new avenues for investigation. However, they can also provide a conclusion useful to other researchers at this point as well as to governmental and private companies and associations, accelerators and academic institutions. They suggest that these organizations should monitor, prepare, and implement programs that tap into entrepreneurial motivation in times of crisis. There is a need to equip entrepreneurs with the necessary skills and mindset to take advantage of any opportunities that arise especially when those appear during a major disaster.
Kariv, D., Baldegger, R.J. and Kashy-Rosenbaum, G. (2022) ‘“All you need is… entrepreneurial attitudes”: a deeper look into the propensity to start a business during the COVID-19 through a gender comparison (GEM data)’, World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development, Vol. 18, Nos. 1/2, pp.195–226.