Storytelling of Female Entrepreneurs: A Narrative Inquiry of Tyrolean Entrepreneurs

While there is a substantial body of literature exploring the influence of entrepreneurial storytelling on the legitimacy of nascent entrepreneurs, this debate remains almost entirely gender blind. This thesis challenges the assumption that entrepreneurship is a gender-impartial and -neutral space by adopting a feminist standpoint to reveal that current conceptualizations of entrepreneurial storytelling and identity construction are informed by masculine discourses. Analyzing how female entrepreneurs narrate their stories and identities with regard to challenges and opportunities in gaining legitimacy as an entrepreneur, this thesis took an interpretivist approach in the form of narrative inquiry. Four female entrepreneurs who founded technology-based businesses in the recent four years in Tyrol, Austria, were interviewed in a semi-structured way. Moreover, the data collection was enriched by participant observations at events on female entrepreneurship. The thematic analysis through inductive open coding revealed that experience and age either act as a constraint or facilitator in the legitimation of female entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the historically constructed male entrepreneur standard continues to impact female entrepreneurial stories, although mostly latent. Due to this prevailing masculine norm in entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurs consciously experience sameness or difference in their identity construction through assimilation or otherness, respectively. Considering the increasing share of female entrepreneurs who contribute to economies worldwide, new conceptualizations of what constitutes an entrepreneur are needed in order to provide a holistic picture of the different entrepreneurial groups and lower the entry barriers to a more diverse population. The implications for research and practice regarding the encouragement of female entrepreneurs to tell their own stories and construct their own identities which neither reproduce existing patterns nor dwell within given boundaries and legitimate them simultaneously are outlined.Arbeit an der Bibliothek noch nicht eingelangt - Daten nicht geprüftInnsbruck, Univ., Masterarb., 2020(VLID)465127