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Don’t Pitch Like a Girl!: How Gender Stereotypes Influence Investor Decisions

Lakshmi Balachandra¹; Tony Briggs²; Kim Eddleston³; Candida Brush⁴

¹ Babson College, Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, Babson Park, MA, USA · ² University of Alberta School of Business, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada · ³ Northeastern University, D’Amore-McKim School of Business, Boston, MA, USA · ⁴ Franklin W. Olin Chair - Entrepreneurship Division, Babson College, Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, Babson Park, MA, USA

We consider the role that gender-stereotyped behaviors play in investors’ evaluations of men- and women-owned ventures. Contrary to research suggesting that investors exhibit bias against women, we find that being a woman entrepreneur does not diminish interest by investors. Rather, our findings reveal that investors are biased against the display of feminine-stereotyped behaviors by entrepreneurs, men and women alike. Our study finds that investor decisions are driven in part by observations of gender-stereotyped behaviors and the implicit associations with the entrepreneur’s business competency, rather than the entrepreneur’s sex.

DOI

10.1177/1042258717728028

Volume

43 (1)

Pages

116-137

Language

en

Export

BibTeX

Sources

crossref