This research contributes to the scarce but growing literature on women angel investors. More specifically, leveraging stereotype threat theory, we investigate the role played by the social environment in shaping investing behavior across genders. This study offers a comparison between female angels from a stereotype-threat–free environment and (a) male angels, and (b) female angel investors investing in a strongly male-dominated environment. Using proprietary survey data of 96 business angels, our findings confirm that the social context plays an important role in explaining female investment behavior and involvement in BA-group activities. We find that women in a female-only group do not feature investment behavior that differs significantly from men. Whereas women who invest as a minority in a male-dominated environment tend to behave differently. Investment experience, however, moderates the influence of male-dominated environments on female investment behavior. The study confirms earlier exploratory findings related to the role of stereotype threat in female business angel activity at the individual level. Contributing to stereotype threat theory and gender studies in the business angel literature, our findings suggest that the historically marginal contribution of women is a result of the social construction of their role in the finance industry, in which stereotype threats may be particularly prevalent, rather than of supposedly innate features of gender.

This paper sheds light over the operations and internal structure of business angel groups (BAGs), a leading actor inside the informal venture capital industry, due to its capability to build cognitive resources and shared competencies that are eventually provided to funded ventures alongside equity capital. We develop a framework based on the role of business angels' decision-making style, human capital and motivation as major determinants of their active involvement in the many different activities performed by angel groups, either investment related activities or group management activities. Our empirical analysis relies on a novel survey-based dataset containing qualitative and quantitative information provided by the members of two large and rather homogeneous business angel groups located in France and in Italy. Results show that business angels with a control-oriented decision-making style tend to be more actively involved in key angel group activities. Human capital built through investment experience, retirement status, as well as initial motivation to join an angel group are also significant drivers of angel involvement in several key BAG activities.