The literature in female entrepreneurship has witnessed significant development in the last 30 years, with the research emphasis shifting from purely descriptive explorations towards a clear effort to embed research within highly informed conceptual frameworks. With contributions from leading and emerging researchers, The Routledge Companion to Global Female Entrepreneurship brings together the latest international research, concepts and thinking in the area. With a strong international dimension, this book will facilitate comparative discussion and analysis on all aspects of female entrepreneurship, including start-ups, socio-economic influences, entrepreneurial capital and minority entrepreneurship. Reflecting the subject’s growing importance for researchers, academics and policy makers as well as those involved in supporting women’s entrepreneurship through training programmes, networks, consultancy or the provision of venture capital, The Routledge Companion to Global Female Entrepreneurship will be an invaluable reference resource.

Bringing much needed clarity and definition to the term 'minority entrepreneur,' this authoritative and timely handbook explores the distinctive challenges that minority communities face when founding and managing new ventures. The handbook is inclusive of any community who might be considered disadvantaged or under-represented in terms of entrepreneurial activity and included are women, youths, seniors, disabled, immigrants, Indigenous peoples, LBGTQ+, ex-offenders, Roma, refugees and many others. Chapters highlight the idiosyncratic nature of the many communities examined before offering frameworks and models that draw together the various findings. With a cast of international contributors, this scholarly handbook discusses the surrounding literature of minority entrepreneurship and takes an all-encompassing approach to its interpretation. It also addresses the sorely under-researched area of entrepreneurial behaviour among minorities and disadvantaged groups. This is particularly important for policymakers tasked with designing and delivering initiatives that are appropriate for the needs of these communities. Ultimately this handbook contributes to existing knowledge by: • providing a current understanding of the literature for each of the communities; • investigating the uniqueness of the entrepreneurial behaviour within the communities; • offering new frameworks/models from which future researchers can build new knowledge. The handbook provides a comprehensive account of an important and fast emerging field of entrepreneurship, and is an invaluable resource for students, researchers and policymakers.

The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business draws together a wide array of state-of-the-art research on multinational enterprises. The volume aims to deepen our historical understanding of how firms and entrepreneurs contributed to transformative processes of globalization. This book explores how global business facilitated the mechanisms of cross-border interactions that affected individuals, organizations, industries, national economies and international relations. The 37 chapters span the Middle Ages to the present day, analyzing the emergence of institutions and actors alongside key contextual factors for global business development. Contributors examine business as a central actor in globalization, covering myriad entrepreneurs, organizational forms and key industrial sectors. Taking a historical view, the chapters highlight the intertwined and evolving nature of economic, political, social, technological and environmental patterns and relationships. They explore dynamic change as well as lasting continuities, both of which often only become visible – and can only be fully understood – when analyzed in the long run. With dedicated chapters on challenges such as political risk, sustainability and economic growth, this prestigious collection provides a one-stop shop for a key business discipline. Chapter 31 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Entrepreneurship in context has been described as the third wave in entrepreneurship research. Accordingly, specific socio-economic, political, market, and institutional contexts are key to fostering, enabling, and enacting entrepreneurial activity and behaviours. These contexts shape everyday entrepreneurship experiences. This book is based on the premise that how gender is articulated within the entrepreneurial debate has to acknowledge context. However, context is not a construct that only applies to those economies and situations that differ from the presumed norm of Western developed nations. Adopting a more critical appraisal of how context is positioned within current theorizing around gender and entrepreneurial behaviours offers potential to progress debate whilst acknowledging that competing and contrasting contextual influences require clearer recognition. This book, therefore, has the potential to unearth credible and robust approaches to further examining contextualisation and women entrepreneurship that advances new insights. By exploring and examining how contextual influences shape women’s entrepreneurship, this book challenges the assumption that women entrepreneurship is the same throughout the world. It will be of value to researchers, academics, and students with an interest in entrepreneurship, political economy, economics, and public policy.

This publication examines how to strengthen the scope and effectiveness of entrepreneurship policies for women. It examines both dedicated measures for women and ensuring that mainstream policies for all entrepreneurs are appropriate for women. Evidence is offered on the gender gap in entrepreneurship and its causes.

This Research Handbook highlights the importance of women as agents of change, acknowledging women entrepreneurs’ efforts and supporting their value-creation activities. With important implications for policymaking, contributing authors direct attention to and provide evidence for the positive contribution of women entrepreneurs to the economy, regardless of their businesses’ size and formal status.

Women entrepreneurs are indeed a formidable force of economic growth and social change, though we still often question the "how" and "why." For the readers who seek to understand the spectrum of gender influences in the context of entrepreneurship, Understanding Women’s Entrepreneurship in a Gendered Context: Influences and Restraints widens the contextual focus of women’s entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship research by providing powerful insights into the influences and restraints within a diverse set of gendered contexts including social, political, institutional, religious, patriarchal, cultural, family and economic, in which female entrepreneurs around the world operate their businesses. From recognition of a seventh-century businesswoman in Mecca to the construction of a gendered scientific Business Model Canvas, this collection of studies will inspire readers to think differently about theory, patriarchy, trade systems, adoption or transformation and strategies to create inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems. In doing so, the contributing authors demonstrate not only the importance of studying the contexts in which women’s entrepreneurial activities are shaped, but also how female entrepreneurs, through their endeavours, modify these contexts. This book will be of great value to scholars, students and researchers interested in women’s entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial ecosystems, gender hierarchy and the transition to gender equality. It was originally published as a special issue of Entrepreneurship & Regional Development.