Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.18045/zbefri.2023.2.477
Social capital and woman entrepreneurs: the characteristics of social capital among woman entrepreneurs across different life stages*
Mateja Vadnjal
orcid.org/0000-0002-8697-859X
Jaka Vadnjal
orcid.org/0000-0002-6196-3957
Brina Vadnjal
Abstract
This research examined women entrepreneurs’ social capital in their different life
stages.The main hypothesis is that women would have different levels and forms of
social capital as they move from one stage to another in their lives in a professional
cycle. We observe emotional support and encouragement from the environment,
and instrumental social capital, through which the entrepreneur accesses
information, business partners, and other resources relevant to her entrepreneurial
process. A survey was emailed to a sample of women’s businesses detected with the
help of an algorithm in a business register. Finally, there were 340 fully answered
questionnaires collected for the statistical analysis that utilized Levene’s F-test to
confirm equality of variances, followed by Tukey’s post hoc test. Otherwise,
Tamhane’s test does not assume equality of variances. Based on the study results,
we could not confirm that motherhood, which includes parenting, being a wife, and
being a housewife, has different impacts on women entrepreneurs in different life
stages. We also cannot support the hypothesis that there is a difference in the
importance of social networks. However, our research confirmed the difference in
the importance of parental influence and the influence of friends and acquaintances
on their entrepreneurial journey.
Keywords
woman entrepreneurs; female entrepreneurs’ social capital; social network; motherhood;
Hrčak ID:
312459
URI
Publication date:
28.12.2023.
Visits: 757 *