WomENt · Women's journey through entrepreneurship in the tourism industry
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2018-09-01 → 2020-12-31
- EU contribution
- €195,455
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Women's journey through entrepreneurship in the tourism industry
WomENt [Women’s journeys through entrepreneurship in the tourism industry] advances the understanding of women’s experiences of tourism entrepreneurship. Tourism is advocated as an accessible entrepreneurship gateway for women because of the predominance of small firms and relatively low entry barriers; but, even so, the proportion of women entrepreneurs remains well below equality and their participation tend to be associated to stereotypical positions in handcrafts, collaborative economy, or positions that replicate family care. This represents a significant lost opportunity for individuals, communities and economies. WomENt draws on the fresh perspectives provided by a post-structuralist feminist approach, reinforced by mixed methods analyses, to identify key contingent factors that determine effective tourism entrepreneurship actions, practices and performances. The pathways will be analysed in the United Kingdom and Spain, with contrasting tourism industries, and entrepreneurial environments. Consequently, the overall research aim of WomENt is to apply a post-structuralist approach to two national case studies: “To understand the different pathways of women’s entrepreneurship journey in a changing tourism industry, and how different environments, agents, policies and actions across different scales (macro, meso and micro) influence their opportunities, motivations and challenges”. The more specific research Objectives (O) are: O1. To analyse women’s pathways in tourism entrepreneurship. O2. To develop evidence-based policy and practice recommendations to foster women’s entrepreneurship in tourism. O3. To promote the culture of entrepreneurship among women in the tourism industry, through effective research-based dissemination.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
As entrepreneurship is fundamental to economic development in the EU, it is essential to maximize the potential pool of successful entrepreneurs by addressing the persistent under-representation of women who constitute only 29% of all entrepreneurs in Europe-37. This is a priority as the proportion of women entrepreneurs has declined since 2008. Tourism is advocated as an accessible entrepreneurship gateway for women because of the predominance of small firms, relatively low entry barriers and the size of the sector (9% of EU GDP). Therefore; tourism provides an important opportunity for women entrepreneurs as individuals, but also for communities and economies at a European level. WomENt aims to understand the different pathways of women’s entrepreneurship journey in a changing tourism industry, and how different environments, agents, policies and actions across different scales (macro, meso and micro) influence their opportunities, motivations and challenges.While the barriers to entrepreneurship faced by women have been studied generically, research on tourism is limited, and the methodologies used have not addressed the complexity of women’s entrepreneurial journeys. Hence WomENt draws on the fresh perspectives provided by a post-structuralist feminist approach, reinforced by mixed methods analyses, to identify key contingent factors that determine effective tourism entrepreneurship practices and performances. The pathways will be analysed in the United Kingdom and Spain, which have contrasting tourism industries and entrepreneurial environments. Research on entrepreneurs’ use of social media, and close collaboration with agents of change (policy-makers, universities etc.), including secondments with key tourism organizations, will ensure the project makes an effective evidence-based contribution to policies and practices that increase the numbers of women entrepreneurs, and diversify the pool of entrepreneurship.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY OF SURREY · GuildfordCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union