ROLLER COASTER · An intuitive entrepreneurial gender ceiling and its impact on entrepreneurial success and access to finance

An intuitive entrepreneurial gender ceiling and its impact on entrepreneurial success and access to finance

Despite the growing number of female-led firms in Europe, such entrepreneurial ventures tend to be smaller in size, have more limited access to finance, and show slower growth and lower profits than male-owned businesses. Because of the nature of entrepreneurship, it is postulated, in line with pattern recognition theory, that intuition affects decision-making. How intuition affects entrepreneurial women and men as well as access to finance, which are crucial for survival, has not to date been objectively investigated. Thus, ROLLER-COASTER’s aim is to investigate entrepreneurial intuition with an interdisciplinary lens. Three research objectives are targeted: 1) to create a solid interdisciplinary framework 2) to explore the ‘entrepreneurial gender ceiling’ 3) to enhance related theories and concepts Two study phases focus on achieving the objectives: Study 1: Using intuition to boost women’s risk-taking performance and men’s risk-taking propensity Using investment decisions as real world based examples and a new intuition measurement with hidden emotional images, this study illuminates how women’s skill at using intuition facilitates their performance to be as good as men when taking risks, while men’s skill at using intuition stimulates their risk taking propensity without affecting performance. Study 2: Investor intuition promotes gender equality in access to finance Although intuition is difficult to distinguish decisively from deliberation and thus poorly understood, it has been often used to explain away gender biases. By contrast, I argue that women’s success in access to finance in crowdfunding is rooted in the use of intuition. I measured investors’ use of intuition in two complementary ways: self-reports and behaviorally through fast investment decision making related to past real-world crowdfunding campaigns. Bayesian analysis, incorporating 2,911 subjects equally from Europe and the United States collected from July 2021 to August 2022 across three randomized controlled experiments, shows that regardless of whether investor intuition actually predicts willingness to invest, it does not significantly interact with presenter’s gender. Although gender preferences can be in play, intuition cannot be used as an explanation. This study points toward the importance of intuition for promoting gender equality and makes clear that the poor scientific reputation around using intuition requires serious rethinking.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union