Gender Differences In Entrepreneurial Opportunity Evaluation

Any progress in economic and social system to a large extent depends on innovation and the development of entrepreneurship. With more and more women engage in professional and managerial positions, increasing emphasis is laid on the role of women entrepreneurs on promoting economic development. However, gender differences in entrepreneurial behavior remained to be significant. From the initial demographic factors, then to economic factors and institutional environment factors, finally to the current psychological and cultural factors, domestic and foreign scholars are committed to explore the influencing factors and mechanisms shaping gender differences in entrepreneurial behavior.As the core concept in the domain of social psychology, stereotype has been widely used to interpret group difference between men and women on gender-typed tasks in the past 20 years. Foreign studies have confirmed the existence of stereotypes in entrepreneurship field and its impact on entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation, this study aimed to explore how stereotypes shape different opportunity evaluations between men and women in the context of Chinese culture. Secondly, it seems to be too hasty if entrepreneurial research were only based on a simple division of male and female in the way of biological sex, and thus explained the differences regarding with men’s and women’s participation in entrepreneurial activity. In this study, by introducing the concept of "social gender mindset", we try to investigate the interaction effect of individual’s biological sex and psychological process on entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation. In addition, no one can exist alone independently of others due to the social attributes of human beings. Moreover, individual’s behavior and judgments are susceptible to others. To fill the current theoretical gap within the entrepreneurship research, this study is the first attempt to take the lens of social influence to explore gender differences in entrepreneurship by using "friends’ traits".On the basis of testing the influence of entrepreneurial stereotype on gender differences in opportunity evaluation in Chinese context, combing with reviewing and summarizing relevant literature regarding to gender difference in entrepreneurial actions, entrepreneurial opportunity, social gender mindset and social influence, the study examined the interaction effect of biological sex and social gender mindset on entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation by using a sample of 222 students from Nanjing University. By regression analysis, we reach the following conclusions:(1)Compared to female students, male students are more inclined to agree with "men outside, women inside" view. Namely, male students hold a more traditional gender mindset as a whole. (2)In general, male students tend to give more favorable opportunity evaluation. (3)Social gender mindset plays a moderating role in the relationship of biological sex and opportunity evaluation. In male student population, the more traditional social gender mindset is held, the higher opportunity evaluation to assess. While in the women’s group of students, the more modern social gender mindset is held, the higher opportunity evaluation is to be. (4)Regulatory effect is also found of Friends’traits on the relationship between biological sex and opportunity evaluation. As for male students, friends’traits display more traditional type, the higher of the opportunity evaluation. In terms of its counterpart, the more modern friends’traits, the higher evaluation. Finally, the article made a detailed analysis and discussion of the findings, summarizing its theoretical contributions and practical value, and leading the future direction on the basis of limitation indication.