【Speaker】Yanfei ZHAO, Indiana University at Bloomington, Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship

【Topic】Women Hold Up Half the Sky? The Enduring Gender Gap in the Performance of Privately Owned Chinese Ventures

Eric’s research has a central theme around the notion of ‘strategic paradoxes’, studying organizations that face difficult challenges, competing demands from multiple stakeholders, and important tradeoffs. In particular, Eric addresses strategic paradoxes in the context of social enterprises as well as in the areas of technological advances and cultural innovations. His goal is to help advance our understandings of how organizations wrestle with various tensions and succeed in converting tradeoffs into synergies.

【Time】Tuesday, May 29, 13:30-15:00

【Location】Room 508, Wei Lun Building, Tsinghua SEM

【Language】English/ Chinese

【Organizer】Department of Leadership and Organization Management

【Abstract】Despite the increasingly comparable access to resources among female and male entrepreneurs, the gender gap in entrepreneurial performance seems to persist. In this paper, we propose that this gap not only originates from different resource levels but is also rooted in broader contextual contingencies that variably enable or constrain female entrepreneurs’ success. We found that on average, ventures owned by male entrepreneurs significantly outperform those owned by female entrepreneurs, after controlling for various types of resource stocks. Beyond resource access, the enduring gender gap seems to be amplified by the strong government intervention and cultural beliefs in gender inequality at the province level.