The impact of gender on sources of social capital within technology incubators: Technology learning in ventures with female founders

New technology-based ventures (NTBVs) gain access to social capital through their affiliation with technology incubators, organizations created to facilitate learning leading to the successful development of nascent firms. Scillitoe and Chakrabarti identified three views of beneficial social capital within networks: “historical ties, organizational facilitation, and trust-based shared pursuit of common goals” (2005: 2). This study extends prior research investigating the development of social capital through organizational facilitation, focusing on female founders. Results are based on surveys collected from 54 technology- based firms affiliated with technology incubators in the United States and Finland. The results from this exploratory study show that the speed of technological learning is negatively affected by the network access in firms with female founding management teams. Implications for technology incubator managers are discussed