Faculty of Economics and Business

Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Master Thesis
MSc in Business Administration
Entrepreneurship and Innovation

The peculiarities of female entrepreneurship in small

business sector of Russia and the Netherlands

Supervisor: Dr. Emiel Eijdenberg

Author: Sinyutina Anna

Student number: 11088486

Date: 19.08.2016

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 Statement of originality
This document is written by Anna Sinyutina who declares to take full
responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original
and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its
references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the
supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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 Abstract

Over the past two decades, female entrepreneurship has been recognized to substantially
contribute to the global socio-economic development (OECD, 2004). However, most research has
been focused on the operation of business start-ups in mature market economies but not countries
with transition economies. Russia is one of the representatives of a transition economy, where
women's activities are mainly concentrated in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) business
sector. As the peculiarities of female start-ups in Russia and their comparison to the ones of the
Netherlands received little attention so far, this qualitative research contributes to the existing
knowledge by focusing on drivers and challenges that either motivate or stop women to engage in
entrepreneurship. To retrieve data and gain in-depth insights, an inductive approach was applied
with the help of 15 semi-structured interviews. The results of the research provide evidence that
there are both similarities and differences among the peculiarities of Russian and Dutch female
entrepreneurs. For instance, the findings show that such factors as Environment Support, Male
Support, Entrepreneurial Parents and Creative Skills are the key drivers on the way to recognizing
and pursuing a business opportunity. In contrast to what was expected, Education was not found to
play such a significant role in predetermining the entrepreneurial path, although in Russia more
entrepreneurs have a Master degree. In regards to the differences, more Russian females were
discovered to start up out of necessity due to negative working conditions. The relevance of this
Thesis can be considered as complementary to the academic knowledge by extending the theory on
female entrepreneurship in the context of small business. In addition, it has several implications for
the Governmental, Educational and Entrepreneurial Institutions, which can facilitate a growing
number of women who are ready to engage in entrepreneurship.

Keywords: female, entrepreneur, small business, start up, drivers, interview, Russia, the
Netherlands.

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Table of Content

Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... 3

Acknowledgement .............................................................................................................................. 7

1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 8

2. Literature Review ......................................................................................................................... 12

2.1 Entrepreneurship ...................................................................................................................... 12

2.2 Female Entrepreneurship.......................................................................................................... 14

2.2.1 Drivers ............................................................................................................................... 15

2.2.2 Consumer-oriented sector ................................................................................................. 20

2.2.3 Barriers .............................................................................................................................. 20

2.2.3 Culture ............................................................................................................................... 20

2.3 Small business sector ............................................................................................................... 21

2.3.1 SME in Russia ................................................................................................................... 22

2.4 Peculiarities of female entrepreneurship in developing countries with transition economy

(Russia)........................................................................................................................................... 24

2.4.2 Drivers ............................................................................................................................... 25

2.4.3 Culture ............................................................................................................................... 25

2.5 Peculiarities of female entrepreneurship in developed counties with mature economy (the
Netherlands) ................................................................................................................................... 26

2.5.1 Drivers ............................................................................................................................... 26

2.5.2 Culture ............................................................................................................................... 27

3. Methodology ................................................................................................................................. 29

3.1 Method of Analysis .................................................................................................................. 29

3.2 Data collection.......................................................................................................................... 30

3.3 Research Analysis .................................................................................................................... 31

3.4 Validity and reliability ............................................................................................................. 31

4. Results ........................................................................................................................................... 33

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 4.1 Sociodemographic factors ........................................................................................................ 33

4.1.1 Age .................................................................................................................................... 34

4.1.2 Education ........................................................................................................................... 34

4.1.3 Learning in practice ........................................................................................................... 35

4.1.4 Entrepreneur type .............................................................................................................. 37

4.2 Contextual factors .................................................................................................................... 37

4.2.1. Undesirable working conditions ...................................................................................... 37

4.2.2 Quitting a job ..................................................................................................................... 39

4.2.3 Presence of role models..................................................................................................... 40

4.2.4 Environment support ......................................................................................................... 41

4.2.5 Male support ...................................................................................................................... 43

4.3 Subjective perceptions.............................................................................................................. 45

4.3.1 Creative skills .................................................................................................................... 45

4.3.2 Alertness to unexploited opportunities.............................................................................. 45

4.3.3 Male qualities or feminity? ............................................................................................... 46

4.4. Why small business? ............................................................................................................... 48

4.5 Challenges ................................................................................................................................ 49

4.6 Start up capital .......................................................................................................................... 50

4.7 Entrepreneur: born or made...................................................................................................... 51

5. Discussion ...................................................................................................................................... 52

5.1 Comparison with previous research ......................................................................................... 52

5.1.1 Sociodemographic factors ................................................................................................. 52

5.1.2 Contextual factors and their connection to perceptual variables....................................... 54

5.2 Strengths and practical implications ........................................................................................ 55

5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further research ..................................................................... 57

6. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 59

7. References ..................................................................................................................................... 61

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Appendix 1: Complete overview of Russian respondents............................................................. 66

Appendix 2: Complete overview of Dutch respondents ................................................................ 67

Appendix 3: Interview Guideline (the Netherlands) ..................................................................... 68

Appendix 4: Interview Guideline (Russia) ..................................................................................... 69

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 Acknowledgement

This thesis is dedicated to all these females who were courageous enough to dive into
the intricate world of entrepreneurship where so much diligence and commitment is
required in order to achieve success.

My thesis would not have been possible without the involvement of all 15 charming
participants, who agreed to share their unique stories and trusted me without any
dread to process the valuable information. They were a great source of inspiration
along my entire journey to finding right answer to the research question.

Next, I would like to thank people who got me in touch with aforementioned
interviewees. Without your large network of contacts, this piece of work would not
have become real.

Moreover, I would like to express great thanks to my supervisor who became a

conductor for me during these months, showing the best route to qualitative research
and helping to arrive to the final destination.

Last but not least, I am very thankful to all friends, parents and boyfriend who were
always there for me with a helpful advice no matter day or night.

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 1. Introduction

Nowadays it is widely agreed that entrepreneurship is becoming an increasingly important

source of employment for women worldwide (Langowitz & Minitti, 2007), also playing a
significant role in the growth process of both developing and developed countries as there is a broad
agreement that the creation of new enterprises is a fundamental driver for economic growth (e.g.,
Minniti et al., 2005; Acs et al., 2005; Acs et al., 2011). Certain researches even suggest that the
contribution to welfare resulting from female entrepreneurship is higher than the one resulting from
the activity of men (e.g., Minniti, 2010). However, according to Minniti (2010), the number of
female entrepreneurs is still significantly lower than that of men and, although there has been quite
a lot of research on the existence of gender differences in entrepreneurial behaviour, the reasons of
such differences are still not very clear. There is no general accordance yet if they root in
contextual, evolutionary or behavioural causes. Because there is a substantial variation of women’s
involvement in entrepreneurial activity among countries, it becomes very important to understand
what factors motivate or prevent females from starting up and then have impact on the success of
their new ventures, reflecting subsequently on the overall economic development of their respective
countries.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) in the special issue on female
entrepreneurship (2015) identifies that geography, culture and the level of economic development
may explain patterns in the rate and nature of entrepreneurship, as well as social attitudes towards
this activity. The report categorizes economies by geographic location and economic development
level, addressing culture throughout the discussion. With respect to the stages of economic
development, GEM classifies the Russian economy as efficiency-driven, and the one of the
Netherlands —as innovation-driven, applying the categories used by the World Economic Forum in
its annual Global Competitiveness Report (2015-2016).1
The efficiency-driven economies are characterized by an achievement of higher productivity
through economies of scale and development of financial institutions while expanding the industrial
sector. Innovation-driven economies are those that are mature and show a progressive shift to an
expanding service sector catering to needs of an increasingly wealthy population. This is typically
associated with growing research and development, knowledge intensity and innovation.
The GEM (2015) demonstrated that among 61 economies (out of 83) featured in this report
and in the previous one, based on 2012 data, overall Total Early-Stage Entrepreneurship Activity

1
This classification is based on the level of GDP per capita and the share of exports of primary goods to total exports
(Schwab and Salari-Martin, 2014).

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(TEA) rates have increased by 7% since 2012, and the gender gap (ratio of women to men
participating in entrepreneurship) has diminished by 6%. TEA rates and gender gap proportions
showed a positive upward movement in three regions: factor- and efficiency-driven Asia, Latin
America and the innovation-driven Europe region, where Russia is seen as a European efficiency-
driven country and the Netherlands — a European innovation-driven country.
Female entrepreneurship and gender differences in small business development continue to
be at the forefront of research in many countries. Business start-ups have also been intensively
researched by academics (e.g., Gartner, 1988; Carter et al., 1996; Gartner & Carter, 2003; Reynolds
& Curtin, 2011). However, most research so far has focused on studying mature market economies
(e.g., Aldrich et al., 1989; Catley & Hamilton, 1998; Bosma & Schutjens, 2011), but not countries
with transition economies and their comparison to the former ones. What is more, in reviewing a
major body of academic articles on women entrepreneurs, Carter et al. (2001) have concluded that
explanatory theories are still lacking.
Nowadays, the economy in former communist East European countries, including Russia, is
in transition and can be classified as developing according to the World Bank categorization (Kelley
et al., 2011). At the same time, developing countries are defined as countries characterized by
middle-income economies in line with the classification proposed by the World Bank (2011). The
environmental context differs greatly between developing and developed countries according to
Iakovleva et al. (2014).
In this Thesis Russia was chosen as a research context amongst other countries with
transition economy for several reasons. Firstly, Russian culture is quite different from others,
though more than seven decades of closed borders had a great impact on the formation of the
mentality and perceptions of all former Soviet Union (FSU) states. What is more, Russian economy
is now developing very intensively. The structure of demand is changing. With growing purchasing
power, entrepreneurship patterns are also changing. Unfortunately, there is a lack of recently
conducted research on female entrepreneurship in Russia, which can be partly explained by the fact
that it is quite a new trend on the Russian market. The overall entrepreneurial activities in transition
countries were not permitted until about twenty years ago, when the "perestroika" period began in
the FSU (Iakovleva et al., 2014). The economic development of the Russian Federation has been
quite challenging since then, although lately the country has been able to develop institutions that
support business growth as well as improve governmental regulations for business start-ups.
However, even though Russia succeeded to enhance the availability of financial services for small
businesses, the sector of entrepreneurship is still seriously underdeveloped in comparison with
developed countries (Iakovleva et al., 2014). Consequently, very little is known about such a

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phenomenon as female entrepreneurship in Russia. In addition, there is a lack of up-to-date
evidence on female entrepreneurship in the small business area in countries with transition
economies.
In contrast, there has been lot of research on female entrepreneurship in the Netherlands,
which represents developed and mature or innovation-driven economy, as determined by the GEM.
According to the GEM (2015), the Dutch TEA rate is still at a historically high level, which is also
relatively high, compared to peer economies. 79% of Dutch Adults (18-64 years old) considered
Entrepreneurship a desirable career choice, which is higher than the average of 55% for all
innovation-driven economies. At the same time, 10.8% of Dutch population had intentions to start a
business compared to the 12.7% average of all innovation-driven economies. In an international
perspective, the Dutch population scores better on perceived opportunities and fear of failure when
compared to the average scores of the rest of the innovation-driven economies.
Because of the fact that there is very limited up-to-date comparable analysis on the topic of
female entrepreneurship in Russia and the Netherlands, each being a bright representative of the
aforementioned economic categories, it becomes a very interesting challenge to investigate the
question and contribute to the research field.
Due to the research gap, the Research Question arises: What are the peculiarities of the
female entrepreneurship in the small business segment of Russia and the Netherlands?
To answer this question, the paper attempts to answer the following sub-questions:

1. Which peculiarities of the female entrepreneurship favour or threaten the start-up initiative and
its further success?

2. How are these peculiarities different in Russia and the Netherlands?

My initial research objectives are:

 To identify which factors drive women to make a decision to become entrepreneurs and
understand if it is a well-planned decision or a result of circumstances;

 To explore what factors influence business growth and success, specifically:

- Do cultural or social norms have an impact;

- Do subjective perceptual factors influence all the issues mentioned above and to
what extent?

 To find out which difficulties female entrepreneurs face while starting up and if they feel it
would be easier to overcome them if they were men;

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  To illustrate and explain the differences of all the topics mentioned above in Russia and the
Netherlands.

To answer these questions a multiple case study with 15 semi-structured interviews is

conducted within the context of this research: female entrepreneurs who have start-ups in small
business area and are based in Russia or the Netherlands.
The contribution of this study will be a better theoretical understanding of the current
situation of female entrepreneurs in two countries for public organizations, start-up incubators,
investors and mentors. The approach that this Thesis takes by conducting interviews will enable to
get real in-depth insights, see the underlying factors that influence entrepreneurs’ decisions and the
extent to which the contextual peculiarities have an impact on business development. This
information can be highly valuable not only for practitioners, but also for national authorities,
giving a better understanding on what prevents a larger number of women to engage in
entrepreneurial activities. This can stimulate the removal of some obstacles and creation of more
favourable conditions for entrepreneurial development.
The thesis proceeds as follows. Firstly, the review of core literature on female
entrepreneurship is presented. Secondly, the interviews are conducted and analysed. Then, chapter 3
describes the research methodology followed by the findings in chapter 4. In the next chapter the
findings are discussed in the light of the reviewed empirical evidence from the literature. This is
followed by practical implications, limitations of this study and prospects for the future research.
Finally, the conclusions are drawn in chapter 6.

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 2. Literature Review

2.1 Entrepreneurship

Although entrepreneurship has provoked a lot of academic interest being widely recognized
to play a crucial role for the development and well-being of a society (Kelley et al., 2011), there has
been a lack of a common definition of entrepreneurship and a concern on what entrepreneurship
represents as a field of study (Gartner, 1990). Because defining the term of entrepreneurship is
challenging, the scholars have done so by describing the components it embraces (e.g., Kouriloff
2000) from their own research perspectives rather than adopting a specific definition for the term
itself. For instance, from an economics’ perspective, there are financial dimensions estimated with
regards to the monetary gain and business growth that are at the heart of entrepreneurship. From a
psychological perspective, there are personal attributes, values and traits that are considered
inherent in entrepreneurs.
In this study only several definitions of entrepreneurship will be presented in order to focus
at the ones where gender is considered. The scholarly definitions of entrepreneurship by
Schumpeter (1934, 1954) and Kirzner (1973, 1979) that emphasize innovation, identification of
opportunities, wealth creation, consequences for the economy, and the entrepreneur as the main
actor in the entrepreneurial process will be adopted as the working definitions for this Thesis. These
two economic schools of entrepreneurship are relevant to the study as they are recommended as a
proper theoretical framework for the research on the topic of female entrepreneurship (OECD,
2004). They clearly emphasize two distinct but complementary ways for the identification and
exploitation of unique peculiarities of women entrepreneurship (OECD, 2004).

The principal idea of Schumpeter’s (1934) definition is that the entrepreneur is a translator
of new ideas and inventions into commercial production. The researcher describes the entrepreneur
as a key point to the dynamic economic development because he is the innovator who introduces: "a
new good," "a new method of production," "a new market," "a new source of supply of raw
materials" or "the carrying out of a new organization of any industry" (Schumpeter, 1934: 66).
Another theory of entrepreneurship by Kirzner (1979) lays stress on the alertness of
individuals to lucrative opportunities that can lead to gaining pure profits. According to his concept,
this is what stimulates market development and determines its direction. Some scholars find
Kirzner’s idea similar to Schumpeter’s one because both of them saw the entrepreneur as a decision
maker in a specific cultural context, who masters a variety of behaviours. Their idea that the

12
entrepreneur is as an exploiter of profitable opportunities, creator of innovations in the production
chain and a driving force of the country’s economy, is reflected in the majority of academic
literature on entrepreneurship in developed economies (e.g., Van Stel et al., 2005).
Both Schumpeter’s and Kirzner’s entrepreneurship definitions are clearly displayed in the
main forms of start-ups embedded in real-life context, which create major elements of the
entrepreneurial process and help identify how females address self-employment as well as the types
of entrepreneurial activities they enter. Kao (1993) summarized the primary components of
Schumpeter’s and Kirzner’s views on entrepreneurship and concluded that firstly, entrepreneurial
behaviour includes the ability to identify new opportunities based on new approaches and then
transform them into something tangible. Secondly, entrepreneurs possess such organizational and
personal skills as leadership, conflict resolution, stress management, communication skills, self-
understanding and tolerance for ambiguity. Finally, the major conclusion of both theories is that
there are consequences of the entrepreneurial behaviour not only for the entrepreneurs themselves,
but also for the economy of the whole country. Entrepreneurs are those who not only recognize
opportunities, but also have creative abilities and practical skills to turn opportunities into
commercial ventures that grow and turn into successful businesses. The psychological
characteristics of an individual, such as strong need for achievement and success, ability to innovate
and create and self-confidence, play a vital role in definitions of an entrepreneur in the theories of
both Schumpeter and Kirzner.
To sum up, entrepreneurship has been conceptualized and defined in a different way by
many scholars as entrepreneurship has developed and progressed in the field, but the major
elements of Schumpeter’s and Kirzner’s definitions can be traced in most theories.
As stated at the beginning of this section, entrepreneurial activity has been constantly
growing over the past two decades of the twentieth century, widely recognized as a key driver of
economic dynamism. The number of entrepreneurs entering start-up activities is increasing every
day all over the world. Solid structural changes, that take place globally, are providing new
opportunities, which are a crucial issue for entrepreneurship as defined by Schumpeter (1934) and
Kirzner (1979). Research in the subject area has also sharply increased over the period, because
history proves that there is a great contribution to the economic progress from the entrepreneurs,
who are able to exploit opportunities and willing to take risks (Hisrich, 2005). However, according
to Arenius & Minniti (2005) women are only half as likely to become entrepreneurs as men, which
is consistent with previous empirical findings (Reynolds et al., 2004).
The next section introduces the notion of female entrepreneurship and reveals the reasons of
such inequality of entrepreneurial activity.

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 2.2 Female Entrepreneurship

The literature indicates the relative youth of female business (Carter et al., 2001) as the
contribution that women make to the business area was not fully recognized until the mid 1980s
(Watkins &Watkins, 1984). Many women simply did not have the opportunity, appropriate
education or social acceptance to enter the business sector thirty years ago. Studies exploring
gender specific barriers (Hisrich & Brush, 1986), drivers for starting-up and comparison analysis
with male entrepreneurs (Cromie, 1987) only started to appear in the literature of the mid 80s.
However, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the economies have recognized
that it is critical to enable women, who make up half the global population, to participate in the
entrepreneurial activities of their countries. Due to the societal changes that have occurred, the
business has become an accepted career path for women and the percentage of women in
entrepreneurship has been growing globally. Research findings revealed (GEM, 2015) that women
entrepreneurs are contributing enormously to the countries’ prosperity worldwide. In contrast, in
nations where women have been restricted from entrepreneurial activities and did not facilitate
societal development, the economy has been stagnant.
The activity of women entrepreneurs is similar to the overall entrepreneurial process,
described by major theorists (e.g, Schumpeter, 1934). Therefore, women entrepreneurs are those
achievement-oriented business owners who have recognized an opportunity, manipulated the
required resources to exploit it and successfully turned this opportunity into a commercial reality. In
order to be able to convert an opportunity into a new business venture, they have used their creative,
practical and innovative skills. Thus, they are substantially contributing to the well being of their
country by wealth and job creation.
Nevertheless, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2004)
states that women still have lower participation rates in entrepreneurship than men because they
face more social and cultural obstacles. These constraints involve higher levels of domestic
responsibility, lower levels of education (especially in developing countries), lack of female role
models in the business sector, fewer business-oriented networks in women’s communities, lack of
available capital and assets, lower status in society and a culturally induced lack of assertiveness
and confidence in their ability to succeed in business. These factors may prevent women from both
perceiving and acting on entrepreneurial opportunities.
According to Kelley et al. (2011), entrepreneurs are major agents of economic growth,
innovation and employment, who are influenced by a combination of different factors in a variety of
settings, contexts, industries, countries and times. From the economic perspective, entrepreneurship

14
is an employment choice. Most scholars agree with the division of factors influencing
entrepreneurial decisions into three main groups proposed by Arenius & Minniti (2005):
sociodemographic factors, perceptual variables, and contextual factors. A lot of researchers have
studied the importance of sociodemographic factors such as age, household income, work status,
and education trying to explain entrepreneurial behaviour and gender differences (e.g., Smallbone
and Welter, 2001; Levesque and Minniti, 2006).
Next sub-sections will provide a more profound review of main factors that reflect on
entrepreneurial activity of women.

2.2.1 Drivers

First of all, in order to understand the peculiarities of female entrepreneurship, it is

important to have a clear idea of the prerequisites that motivate women to make a decision to start
their own business.
Recently, a considerable amount of academic literature connected to entrepreneurship has
been focused on employment choices and on the alternative causes for people to become
entrepreneurs. In such type of research, an individual’s decision to become an entrepreneur is a
result of a maximization process when a person compares the returns from overall activities that
produce income and selects the alternative of entrepreneurship – the employment opportunity with
the highest expected return (Arenius & Minniti, 2005).
Empirical studies in economics have emphasized entrepreneurship as an employment choice
and, thus, the demographic and economic factors like Education, Age, Wealth, and Work Situation
have been seen as considerable drivers of entrepreneurial behaviour. Gartner in his theory of
Characteristics of the Individual (1985) distinguishes a few more experiences and attitudes that are
related to the background of the entrepreneur such as Previous Work Experience, Job Satisfaction
and Entrepreneurial Parents. This is also in line with what Carter et al. (1996) indicate to have a
significant influence on the activities of entrepreneurs. Previous Experience and Background Of
The Entrepreneur are some of the factors they argue to be related to what distinguishes
entrepreneurs. In contrast, Robinson et al. (1991) argue that the use of the demographic variables to
evaluate entrepreneurial behaviour is not efficient, because there are specific reactions to certain
circumstances and constant personality characteristics, which determine the choice of
entrepreneurship. Moreover, they argue that some demographic variables such as Birth, Education
Level and Parental Heritage cannot assist in predicting the choice of an entrepreneurial path.

15
 After their study analysis of a set of four subcategories of attitudes, Robinson et al. (1991)
prove that entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs differ to a large extent in the following
subcategories:
 Perceived control of business outcomes (Locus Of Control): perception of influence over his
or her entrepreneurial business.
 Perceived Self-Esteem in business: perception of the competitiveness of the entrepreneur in
relation to his or her business activities and self-confidence.
Gartner (1985) also emphasizes that some of the dimensions, which explain new venture
creation, are related to psychology, such as Need For Achievement, Locus Of Control and Risk
Taking Propensity.
Arenius & Minniti (2005) improved previous studies by indicating that perceptual
variables, the importance of which for entrepreneurial behaviour has already been established in
the psychology and sociology literature, should also be included in the economic model. They claim
that, in addition to the sociodemographic variables, which people consider when they evaluate
whether to engage in an entrepreneurial activity, they are also influenced by a number of subjective
perceptions. The factors that shape the people’s perception about entrepreneurship are Presence Of
Role Models, Confidence In One’s Skills And Abilities, Risk Propensity and Alertness To
Unexploited Opportunities. The importance to consider perceptual variables displays that there are
intrinsic drivers that play an important role in human behaviour.
The previous work of Shane et al . ( 2003) accepts the Gartner ́s theory (1985) that the
entrepreneurial theory should include motivations of the entrepreneurs. They present a wide set of
entrepreneurial motivations: Need for Achievement, Risk Taking, Tolerance for Ambiguity, Locus
of Control, Self-Efficacy, Goal Setting Independence, Drive and Egoistic Passion.
In addition, Shane et al. (2003) present a framework, which helps categorize entrepreneurial
motivations and cognitive factors. Cognitive factors often refer to Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
Of Individuals. Actual skills and knowledge can be obtained via Educational Institutions, Training
or Role Modelling (Iakovleva et al., 2014). With regard to entrepreneurship, the availability and
quality of education varies significantly across countries.

Subjective perceptions

The later results of Langowitz’s & Minniti's (2007) work show that subjective perceptual
variables have a crucial impact towards the entrepreneurial propensity of women and explain a lot
about the difference in level of entrepreneurial activity between the genders. Their findings based
on the sample of 17 countries suggest that women tend to perceive themselves and the

16
entrepreneurial environment in a less favourable light than men. Thus, their conclusion is that
perceptual variables could be the most important factors influencing entrepreneurial behaviour. It is
supported with findings that the decision to start up for women is far more complex than for men
and that females tend to be more sensitive than males to a variety of non-monetary.

Environment

Entrepreneurs do not work in in a vacuum. Two different perspectives about the

environment have been used in the entrepreneurship theory. The first perspective looks at the
environment as an outside set of conditions to which the entrepreneur needs to adapt. The second
perspective declares that environment is the reality that women create through their own
perceptions (Gartner, 1985). In accordance with Gartner’s (1985) theory, individuals respond to the
environment as well as rely on encouragement and support from others. Aldrich et al. (1989) and
Shane et al. (2003) consider that the study of personal attributes of entrepreneurs and their
environmental conditions are complementary. Therefore, Opportunities in the Environment with
regard to self-perceptions should be considered as additional elements that motivate the
entrepreneur to engage in entrepreneurial activities. In other words, self-perceptions are closely
linked to the environment in which the entrepreneurship takes place. For example, if a society
mainly defines women through roles connected to family and household responsibilities, societal
values implicitly interpret women’s entrepreneurship as less desirable and, as a result, provide
lower normative support (Baughn et al., 2006; Langowitz & Minniti, 2007). At the same time,
opportunity recognition is influenced by personal ambitions – the willingness of entrepreneurs to
choose among different opportunities in order to identify and pursue an idea. Consequently, low
self-perceptions or personal ambitions can lead to a lower level of opportunity recognition for
women and, and thus, lower rates of females entering entrepreneurship. De Bruin et al. (2007) refer
such behaviour to self-imposed barriers, which relate to women’s erroneous perception that they
may not have the right opportunities and enough knowledge to start their own businesses.

Networks

All in all, most scientists agree that the environment plays a role in influencing patterns of
entrepreneurial behaviour. Isenberg (2010) affirms that in order to enhance start-up creation,
governments need to create ecosystems that assist entrepreneurs. In the context of his theory,
Isenberg (2010) mentions some components, which are necessary to build a solid ecosystem:
Government Institutions that support entrepreneurship; that respects entrepreneurship as a worthy
occupation, Success Stories for inspiration; Educational Institutions that promote entrepreneurship.
GEM’s report on women entrepreneurship (2015) emphasizes that in order to improve women’s

17
confidence to take advantage of opportunities and build their ability to manage risk, special
programs should be introduced to enhance skills and competencies, including other initiatives such
as mentoring and advising. GEM (2015) also states that while women are almost equally as likely
as men are to recognize the presence of opportunities around them, gender gaps are visibly rooted in
Capability Perceptions and Fear Of Failure. Capabilities stem from education and social support.
Economies, like the Netherlands, that promote initiatives for increasing visibility and access to role
models, are likely to encourage women entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses.
There are also many studies that have investigated the reasons why people initiate ventures,
looking at this issue from a different angle (e.g., Buttner & Moore, 1997; Shane et al., 2003; Minniti
et al., 2005). In general, researchers have divided the factors which influence the individual decision
to start up into push and pull factors, each shaping a different type of start-up motivation (so-called
opportunity vs. necessity - driven business). In his study Acs (2006) defines "necessity
entrepreneurship" as a way of having to become an entrepreneur because one has no better option,
whereas "opportunity entrepreneurship" is an active choice to start a new venture based on the
perception that unexploited or underexploited business opportunities exist. This is also in line with
the GEM’s (2005) framework, which allowed to differentiate two main reasons that motivate
entrepreneurial behaviour of individuals: they either want to exploit a perceived business
opportunity (opportunity entrepreneurs), or they are pushed into entrepreneurship because all other
possibilities for work are absent or unsatisfactory (necessity entrepreneurs).
The pull factors, associated with "opportunity entrepreneurship", imply the Opportunity To
Work Independently, Desire To Have Greater Control Over One's Work and Earn More Money.
They are more typical for men. On the contrary, women start their businesses primarily as a result
of influence from such push factors as Limited Advancement Opportunities, Job Frustration,
Avoiding An Unreasonable Boss or Unsafe Working Conditions (Buttner & Moore, 1997), which
are related to "necessity entrepreneurship". Female entrepreneurs are less often opportunity-driven
than men when starting-up because they are more vulnerable to labour market shocks and are fired
more often than men. Thus, according to the research of GEM made by Minniti et al. (2005),
women become entrepreneurs mostly because of being "pushed" into it. Acs (2006) suggests in his
research that opportunity entrepreneurship mostly occurs in developed economies and leads to
economic development, whereas necessity entrepreneurship usually occurs in developing
economies and is unlikely to lead to economic development.
To sum up, most researchers show similar point of views and have agreed that both
objectively measurable characteristics and subjective perceptions are all in a line with the
entrepreneurship (e.g., Arenius & Minniti, 2005; Minniti & Nardone, 2007). The results of

18
Koellinger et al. (2013) suggest that males and females perceive the world around with "different
eyes". Based on the reviewed existing academic literature, it can be noted that the fact that
differences in cognitive processes and perceptions have an impact on the decision to start a new
business contributes towards explaining the gender gap in entrepreneurial activity. Although these
factors have a universal effect, their objective importance varies considerably across countries due
to differences in underlying conditions (economic, political, cultural, etc.) that further encourage or
prevent females from running their own business.
Therefore, it becomes interesting to see how Russian and Dutch entrepreneurs vary in terms
of reasons to become entrepreneurs.

Knowing an entrepreneur

The access to Networks and Role Models were also paid a lot of attention amongst other
researchers considering being objectively measurable microeconomic factors that influence start up
propensity (Minniti, 2010). Contacts with other entrepreneurs can provide women not only with
advice and improved confidence, but also with a spread network of new valuable contacts and other
benefits, which can lead to the overall success of entrepreneurs' activities.
Some scholars believe that women have different kinds of networks than men, which leads
them to reception of different information. The research of Aldrich et al. (1989) suggests that
women more often have both men and women in their networks, while men are more likely to have
homogeneous networks limited to men.
The little resource base, that some women entrepreneurs are typically able to access at a
start-up stage, often results in cautious behaviour and a longer venture creation process (Welter et
al., 2007). However, caution can also be associated with a greater feeling of responsibility regarding
entrepreneurs’ household, which leads to more risk-averse behaviour, consequently influencing the
path and pace of an entrepreneurial performance.

Access to financing

Access to financing is a key at all stages of women’s business development, which should fit
in with progress in a business society, shifting financing needs (GEM, 2015). For instance, a
challenge for most women of moving from micro businesses to small and medium-sized businesses
roots in a need of change from financing a business with micro-finance sources to normal banking
conditions, where there is often bias in the lending process (Russia is an example).

19
 2.2.2 Consumer-oriented sector

Evidence from different countries reveals that female business owners prefer to start-up
mainly in sectors where women employment is concentrated (e.g., Brush et al., 2006), such as small
business retail and services. According to GEM’s special report (2015), female entrepreneurs
participate heavily in the consumer-oriented sector because it is easier to enter. However, at the
same time it is more difficult to sustain there due to low entry barriers and high competitiveness.
Anyway, an investigation of the features of the businesses owned by women shows these to be
predominantly service-oriented (Hisrich & Brush, 1999), which nowadays can also partly stem from
the fact that businesses in foods, textiles and services areas are becoming more important (GEM,
2015).

2.2.3 Barriers

Barriers to entrepreneurship have long been studied as important factors that discourage
women from creating start-ups.
De Bruin et al. (2007) claim that all the assumptions about entrepreneurial Alertness To
Unexploited Opportunities may be "gendered" because of their underlying assumption of rational
behaviour. Cognitions and perceptions, as seen above, significantly influence the discovery and
exploitation of opportunities. However, if women socialize differently, they perceive opportunities
in a different way (DeTienne & Chandler, 2007). The perspective of Brush (1992) shows that
opportunities go hand in hand with women’s lives and experiences, which can also be related to
more macro environmental considerations.
Even though previous empirical research has identified several important barriers, the
concept of barriers still lacks comparisons of cross-cultural differences (Ialovleva, 2014). Most
studies have used a deductive approach with pre-existing lists of barriers, not allowing for finding
out country-specific barriers, particularly in developing countries.

2.2.3 Culture

Shane (1992) reveals the link between individualism and the level of innovativeness in a
society. According to the later research based on Hofstede’s (2001) theory of cultural consequences,
the values of Russians and Dutch people vary significantly. Russians are found to share more
collectivistic values, whereas Dutch people are considered to be more individualistic. Some other
scientists (e.g., Gesteland, 1999) in their studies on patterns of cross-cultural business behaviour
define the Russian culture as Relationship-Focused, Formal, Polychronic and Variably Expressive,

20
and the Dutch culture - Deal-Focused, Moderately Formal, Monochronic and Reserved (see Figure
1).

Figure 1: Peculiarities of business cultures (Gesteland, 1999).

2.3 Small business sector

Recent evidence in literature shows that women are more likely to run a business in the
Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) or, as defined by other practitioners, Micro and Small
Enterprises (MSEs) sector (GEM, 2015).
This occurs for different reasons. First explanation roots in the high level of risk aversion
that women tend to have. Women predominantly try to avoid risky opportunities and prefer to play
it safe. In such case they do not lose more money than they possess (Kotey & Meredith, 1997). This
higher level of risk aversion has an impact on the decisions they make, which then influences
business development in terms of its profitability and size. Therefore, females choose industries
with less growth potential such as service and retail industry.

21
 What is more, one of the reasons to prefer MSE is that such industries do not cause many
expenses and thus require less start-up capital. This enables women to start on their own without
seeking outside investment.
In addition to that, females have their household responsibilities alongside having their own
businesses (Verheul & Thurik, 2001). These family activities that take much time and effort can be
one of the possible explanations why women want to keep their company small, enabling them to
stay flexible, and, at the same time, more independent than at the full-time job.
In any case, whether women are involved in small or medium production activities, as
shown by OECD (2004), they are contributing internationally by empowering countries’
economies, providing employment and changing the way the world does business (Jalbert, 2002).
Nearly all of the female entrepreneurs taking part in the interviews fall within the definition
of small enterprises. However, even though some participants are better described as micro sized
businesses that form a significant part of what is called the SME area, I use this term throughout
this paper and refer to my respondents as being entrepreneurs of SMEs.
Next sub-sections will provide an overview of SME in Russia and the Netherlands.

2.3.1 SME in Russia

When the Bolshevik Revolution occurred in 1917, Russia was principally agrarian, and
small business has never expanded the way it has in the developed countries (Zhuplev & Shtykhno,
2009). The following eighty years under the communist regime have severely restricted and
hampered small business development. Such events in Russian history have constrained the
formation of proper cultural attitudes toward entrepreneurship.
The SME sector in the Russian post-Soviet economy has appeared via privatization of
formerly state-owned enterprises and private venture initiation (Zhuplev & Shtykhno, 2009). Due to
the crash of the communist system and solid transformation of the political regime and
administrative structure, small business and entrepreneurship are becoming increasingly important
in the economic and social development of Russia. They are also starting to attract the more
attention of scholars and practitioners as Russian emerging business market creates new demands
for academic research (Zhuplev & Shtykhno, 2009).
The phase of economic stability upon Putin’s second presidential term (2004–2008)
stimulated increase in the population’s purchasing power and the number of small businesses.
Economic stability has also induced higher safety for private investors, signifying easier access to
finance for SMEs. Regarding small business entrepreneurial behaviour, Zhuplev & Shtykhno
(2009) examined entrepreneurial climate and developments on the Russian small business market

22
by analyzing entrepreneurs’ motivations and obstacles in starting up and running businesses. The
findings of a longitudinal survey with entrepreneurs indicated that Russia’s climate for SME and
entrepreneurship has improved, although it is still at a stage of progress. The study showed younger
age, larger proportion of female entrepreneurs, and remaining small size of the firms. Although the
share of SME entrepreneurial activities in Russia is still lower than in most developed economies,
the gap is decreasing (Zhuplev & Shtykhno, 2009).
The 2008 survey stated the emergence of such major motivations toward small
entrepreneurship as individual wealth creation and obtaining a status of "own boss". Research
evidence demonstrated that reforms in the taxation regime and licensing procedures helped new
business entry (Zhuplev & Shtykhno, 2009). Clear regulations and simple bureaucratic processes
triggered business growth.
However, the GEM (2007) survey of 42 countries ranked Russia one of the least
entrepreneurial countries across its group of middle-low income countries in Europe and Asia. What
is more, Russia continues to hold cultural reservations toward entrepreneurship (GEM, 2007),
which, as noted earlier, stem from the long history of the Soviet.
Limited sources of financing have been a serious constraint for the development of
entrepreneurship in Russia (Iakovleva, 2013). Indeed, most studies on entrepreneurship in
developing countries indicate lack of start-up capital as one of the main problems. While there are a
few government programs to support SMEs in Russia, the banking system offers loans for small
enterprises at higher interest rates than in European countries. This makes loans unaffordable and
creates a significant barrier for start-ups (Iakovleva, 2013). This is also partly why most
entrepreneurs rely on family and friends as major resources of investment for founding their
businesses (RCSME, 2011). Other sources of the initial capital for new venture creation in Russia
are personal funds. Banks are usually not used by entrepreneurs to finance their businesses.
Recently has been agreed that the business environment in Russia differs considerably from the one
in the Netherlands. According to the World Bank (2016) index of easiness of doing business2, the
Netherlands is ranked 28 and Russia – 51 in 2016, which is better than 62 in 2015.
The World Bank’s survey also ranks Russia in the other key subcategories, which show that
the overall ranking has improved, although some subcategories prove the opposite: starting a
business ranks 41 in 2016 compared to 34 in 2015; trading across borders – 170 compared to 155 in
2015. Registering property accounts for 8 in 2016; getting credit - 42; protecting investors - 66;
paying taxes - 47; enforcing contracts - 5 and closing a business - 55. The small sized enterprises

2
The economies are ranked from 1 to 181 and the first place is the best. A high ranking means that the regulatory
climate is conductive to the business operation.

23
in Russian legislation are now defined based on the number of employees and are indicated as
having no more than 100 employees (Russian SME Resource Centre, 2003).

2.4 Peculiarities of female entrepreneurship in developing countries with

transition economy (Russia)

Until recently it was not common to see females owning businesses on the global scene,
especially in developing countries like Russia. The idea and practice of women entrepreneurship is
a new phenomenon there. Until the Gorbachev’s reforms in the late 1980s and the eventual collapse
of the USSR in the early 1990s, little was known about female entrepreneurship both in practice and
theory, which generally drew the scholars’s attention to men.
Historically, Russia’s business climate and cultural tradition have been less favourable for
entrepreneurship compared to developed economies. In addition to its very unique politico-
economic path, there are other distinctive characteristics like vast territory, tough climate, large
distances, poor infrastructure, communal lifestyle, and numerous destructive wars (Zhuplev &
Shtykhno, 2009). Nevertheless, through stabilization period during the Putin administration’s two
terms, entrepreneurial environment in Russia has improved, though there is a room for progress
(Zhuplev & Shtykhno, 2009). The perception of business is related now to the individual wealth
creation and an increased freedom of movement. The younger age of female entrepreneurs and
amore balanced male-female ratio (49.6:51.4 in 2008 compared to 70:30 in 1994) may signify a
number of improvements in education and relative changes in cultural attitudes over the last decade
(Zhuplev & Shtykhno, 2009).
When summarizing the empirical results from several studies, Baygan (2000) describes the
average woman entrepreneur in post-Soviet context as one belonging to the 35-44 age group, which
partly overlaps with later research of GEM (2015) that found that the efficiency-driven region
(which includes some FSU countries) is characterized by the appearance of younger entrepreneurs,
with the 25-34 age groups having the largest rates. Baygan (2000) also claims that an average
female entrepreneur is married and has children as well as has a less formal or business related
education or prior work experience than the average man. As regards business characteristics,
female entrepreneurs principally set up their ventures with lower start-up capital than men (Welter
et al., 2007). Women-owned firms are also mostly found to be smaller in size compared to those
owned by men. At the same time, women entrepreneurs are getting increasingly involved in less
traditional sectors. When it comes to education, natural sciences have always been a priority and

24
tradition in post-Soviet countries, while education in the field of business started to be a trend only a
few decades ago. Although the studies in the field of the entrepreneurship are still very scarce.

2.4.2 Drivers

Hisrich & Grachev (1995) found in their study that the drivers of Russians to become
entrepreneurs were: lack of job satisfaction (10-31%), desiring independence (7-22 %), economic
necessity (5-16 %) and opportunity (5-16 %). A later study of Welter et al. (2007) showed that the
decision to start a business is formed by a combination of push and pull factors. According to
Weleter et al. (2007), the number of reforms in FSU economies deprived many females of paid jobs
and social security provided by government, thus forcing them to search for alternative means of
generating income. The necessity entrepreneurship is typical for developing countries where
economic development is less dependent on international trade and women are less empowered in
the economy. The study of GEM (2007) declared the share of opportunity-driven entrepreneurs in
Russia to account for 30%, which is one of the lowest shares in comparison to the other middle-
income countries. Thus, Russian women generally start their businesses either to generate extra
income for the household or for non-economic motives.

2.4.3 Culture

There is empirical evidence that in FSU countries, business is usually considered to be

principally "male territory", which requires the so-called "male" qualities, such as strength and
assertiveness Welter et al. (2007). This is not surprising in Central Asian and East-European area,
where cultural values that emphasize family relations, helped to survive throughout the Soviet
period, though gaining momentum, once transition started (Tabyshalieva, 2000). The same trend
applies to the Russian Federation, reflecting ‘widely held public assumptions that business is a
masculine occupation’ Welter et al. (2007). Akiner (1997) describes this as the ‘concept of male
guardianship’, which reflects in both public and private life, being a trend with significant potential
consequences for both female entrepreneurship and the role that social capital tends to play in
financing a business venture. For example, Roberts & Tholen (1999) discovered in their research on
young entrepreneurs in transition economies that female entrepreneurs were more likely to pursue a
business with their husband/friend or father as partners or guardians, while in Central European
countries, like the Netherlands, it was undoubtedly easier for women to act as entrepreneurs on their
own. The previous research of Baines & Wheelock (1998) has proved the efficiency of a non-

25
formal husband and wife alliance.

This is highly in line with the earlier study of Bollinger (1994) who found a low level of
individualism of Russia. In contrast, later study of Naumov & Puffer (2000) claimed moderate score
in individualism in the 1990s. Today, the Russian ideology of communal collectivism has only
started to shift towards the values of capitalism, individualism and competition.
However, the extent of family support still has a great impact on the performance of women-
owned businesses, relating to the emotional, financial or real labour support the family may
provide.

2.5 Peculiarities of female entrepreneurship in developed counties with

mature economy (the Netherlands)

As mentioned before in this Thesis, the majority of countries in Western Europe, including
the Netherlands, have a developed economy. Well-established business infrastructure, available
financial support, a high income per each population member and overall economic stability have
been distinctive features of mature economies for many decades (Iakovleva et al., 2014). As shown
by World Bank report (2016), business registration in such countries is a relatively fast and easy
process, being ranked 30 in the Netherlands among the 189 economies that participated in the
research. Banking services are widely available and education in the field of entrepreneurship have
existed since the 1970-1980s. In such countries the topics of business development and
entrepreneurial activities are at the forefront of academic research and governmental programs
(e.g., "Education and Entrepreneurship 2008-2013"), facilitating the emergence of opportunity-
seeking individual aspirations and innovative ideas (Bosma & Levie, 2009). Interestingly, the
easiness of trading across the borders in the World Bank report (2016) scores 1 across all the
countries that participated in the research, which could be a result of the culture’s openness to the
new and undiscovered. However, Dutch entrepreneurs face one of the disadvantages of a mature
economy: high expertise consumer demands and tough competition in the established market. What
is more, being used to a high life standard, they often feel being less rewarded when starting a
business compared to the time they were employees (Iakovleva et al., 2014).

2.5.1 Drivers

Traditionally, a very large share of Dutch entrepreneurs have been motivated by the pursuit
of opportunity (GEM, 2015). A stable, generous social security system and a greatly protected
employee status have been typical for the Netherlands. The proportion of opportunity-driven

26
entrepreneurs in the Netherlands, who are willing to increase their income or independence, is about
66% according to GEM (2007). The share of opportunity-driven early-stage entrepreneurial activity
is found to be the highest in the Netherlands among other innovation-driven countries (GEM, 2015).
This can be explained by the fact that there are more available alternatives at individuals’ disposal,
which restricts the pressure to start a business out of necessity. Perceived opportunities have
increased considerably in comparison with 2013, with high rates at lack of fear of failure and choice
of entrepreneurship as a desirable career path (GEM, 2015).
Nevertheless, there are still more men entrepreneurs than women in the Netherlands.
Women account for only 28% of the whole entrepreneurship (GEM, 2007).

2.5.2 Culture

There have been a lot of theoretical frameworks explaining cultural dimensions. The most
used framework is the four-dimensional model by Hofstede (1984), distinguishing between the
following dimensions: Power distance, Individualism versus Collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance,
Masculinity versus Femininity. Power distance is the ‘extent to which less powerful members of
organizations and institutions accept and expect that power is distributed unequally’ (Hofstede &
Bond, 1988: 10). Individualism is a degree to which people put their individual gains over group
interests. The third dimension, Uncertainty avoidance is "the extent to which the members of a
culture feel threatened by uncertain or unknown situations" (Hofstede, 2001: 161). The last
dimension, Masculinity, is the degree to which "masculine" values like assertiveness, competition,
and success are seen as opposite to "soft" and "feminine" ones: life quality, personal relationships,
trust, and service.

Russia The Netherlands

Cultural Bollinger, Naumov, Hofstede, Kolman et
dimensions 1994 2000 1984 al., 2003
Individualism 26 41 80 85
Uncertainty
92 68 53 37
avoidance
Masculinity 28 45 14 17
Power
76 40 38 14
distance

Table 1: Comparison of cultural dimensions between Russia and the Netherlands

The following overview compares these four dimensions of Russia and the Netherlands in
terms of different studies. As reported by Hofstede (1984) and later by Kolman et al. (2003), Dutch
people are very high on individualism. This high score may be an indication of a society with more

27
individualistic attitudes and quite loose ties with others. Dutch entrepreneurs are more self-reliant
and take care of themselves and their close family members. They also have less uncertainty
avoidance and power distance than Russian entrepreneurs, which indicates that the fear of failure
should be lower. The low rates in masculinity reflect that there is no big differentiation and
discrimination between men and women in the Netherlands. The Russians show a higher, but still
relatively low masculinity score, as they feel that they have quite low control over situation.
Summarizing, cultural values in the Netherlands and in the Russian Federation vary
considerably in line with the studies, based on Hofstede’s (1984) model of cultural dimensions.

28
 3. Methodology

This section explains the methods that were used to conduct this research. In addition, it
gives a justification for the relevant usage of the applied methods. The research design describes the
inductive approach. Furthermore, the sample selection and data collection process are elaborated in
line with the analysis strategy. This is followed by the explanation of how the validity and
reliability issues are addressed. All interviews were taken between March 2016 and June 2016.

3.1 Method of Analysis

The research method is a qualitative research methodology, which is chosen in an attempt to

best suit the purpose of collecting data and answering the Research Question of this paper as, firstly,
little is known about the topic and secondly, it is essential to understand the subject from the
perspective of those studied (female entrepreneurs) (Pratt, 2009). The research design of this study
is of both exploratory and explanatory nature. As there has been little comparison on the topic of
female entrepreneurship in the context of Russian and Dutch business environment, it becomes very
interesting to gain new insights and expand current knowledge of the phenomena. An exploratory
study is then considered as a valuable means to define "what is happening; to seek insights; and to
assess phenomena in a new light" (Saunders et al., 2009). The explanatory part reflects the aim to
explain how the phenomena are influenced by a certain context among Russian and Dutch
entrepreneurs (Saunders & Lewis, 2012; Yin, 2014).
An inductive approach is used to describe the patterns of female business owners’ behaviors,
their difference in the two countries and to develop a theory based on the research findings of this
Thesis, although an element of deduction takes place as the aim to investigate the topic is initially
caused by a research gap in the existing academic literature (Saunders & Lewis, 2012).
A multiple research case study is applied as the research strategy. There are several reasons
for this. First, because of the unilateral data and limited literature available on the topic, it is
necessary to understand a real-life phenomenon (female entrepreneurship) in depth, where such
understanding encompasses important contextual conditions (small business segment in Russia and
the Netherlands) (Yin & Davis, 2007). Moreover, according to Yin (2009), case studies are the
preferred unit of research when "how" questions are being posed, the investigator has little control
over events and relevant behaviors cannot be manipulated.
The case study often includes such source of evidence as interviews of the persons involved
in the events (Yin, 2009). Thus, in order to identify and explain the differences of female

29
entrepreneurship in Russia and the Netherlands, this Thesis develops multiple case studies based on
primary data collected from semi-structured interviews. Different reasons justify the use of semi-
structured interviews. First, the data that the participants provide is the main source of information
for constructing the theory. Secondly, in-depth or semi-structured interviews enable the researcher
to get insights into the first-hand experience of the entrepreneurs. Last but not least, semi-structured
interviews can be used to understand relationships between certain variables (Saunders et. al, 2009).

3.2 Data collection

As this Thesis focuses on the current situation that involves looking for differences between
specific participants (female entrepreneurs) acting in specific demographic areas (Russia and the
Netherlands), the research design required a sample that consisted of comparable individuals in the
above mentioned empirical setting. To get a suitable sample and generate representative findings, it
was first made sure to select women who have businesses that can be compared with each other.
The choice was based on the following criteria: business size (small), start-up date of creation (not
more than 3 years ago), business type (lifestyle).
The research on the Russian market was feasible due to the relatively easy access to
respondents – the connections between the entrepreneurs and some people the inner circle of author
and further application of the snowball sampling strategy once the contact with these entrepreneurs
was established (Saunders & Lewis, 2012). The Dutch participants were found at different kinds of
start-up events, festivals and fair markets. The permission for an interview was asked those
potential candidates who met the criteria following the non-probability purposive sampling
technique, specifically, typical case variety (Saunders & Lewis, 2012).
A complete overview of the background data on participants, that was composed after all the
interviews were taken, can be found in Appendices 1 and 2.
The 15 face-to-face interviews lasting from 20 to 90 minutes were audio recorded which
enabled me to focus on the conversation and not taking notes. As the interviews were semi-
structured, the guideline of questions and their order were composed in advance (see Appendices 3
and 4) but modified during the interviews depending on the flow of conversation. The guideline
ensured a helpful structure for the interviews, but did not limit their content, giving the participants
a chance to bring up anything they considered to be relevant. This led to the emergence of new the
themes and enabled the interviewees to share their perceptions without bounding them to discuss
only pre-determined topics. As a result, there was a much better understanding of reality.
At the same time, in order to ensure confidentiality, high quality of audio recording and
reliability of given information, the interviews were carried out one-on-one. The permission for

30
recording was asked both at first contact and at the beginning of the interview itself. The overall
purpose of the study, a clear description of the required information and further accessibility of data
were clearly explained to all the entrepreneurs. After a verbatim transcribing, the interviews taken
in Russian were translated into English keeping in mind the original answers and ideas they
transfer. The comments enclosed in brackets were written when there was a need to make context
information clear.

3.3 Research Analysis

After the iterative review of the transcripts they were coded within a word, a phrase, a
sentence or a whole paragraph. Then, the codes were analyzed and grouped into themes. In order to
make a coherent flow of all the information, the data was first broken into small parts, as proposed
by Boeije (2010). Following the recommendations of Attride-Stirling (2001), the basic themes were
identified and derived from the data. As they are not sufficient for the analysis on their own, they
were reviewed within a context of other basic themes. Then, the organizing themes were created as
middle-order themes that categorize the basic themes into groups that cover similar issues. The
organizing themes were transformed into global themes groups, which are called as super-ordinate
themes and present a position about the given issue as a whole (Attride-Stirling, 2001). The groups
of global themes, organizing themes and basic themes formed a hierarchical thematic framework,
which was then interpreted and analyzed according to Attride-Stirling (2001). By using a data-
driven approach, it was ensured to explore all the topics that came up during the interviews, and not
only the ones that have been found before in literature. Thus, the patterns in the collected data
allowed for the development and division of categories and subcategories and for referring units of
data to each category. The final phase of the process was the data interpretation. This required an
in-depth study of the relations between the themes and the central objectives of this research. The
analysis of those relations enabled me to obtain a bigger picture and a clear overview of the
collected data, which became the basis for the next chapters of this Thesis.

3.4 Validity and reliability

The strength of the current research is that the internal validity, which refers to the extent of
accuracy in measurement, is ensured by conducting semi-structured interviews that provide access
to real in-depth information through first-hand experience of female entrepreneurs (Reis & Judd,
2000). The reliability, which indicates the degree of possible alternative explanations for the

31
outcomes by other researchers, is provided by recording, transcription and coding of all interviews
(Saunders & Lewis, 2012).
One of the limitations of this research design is that it is questionable if the generalizability
can be provided based on the findings from the given sample. The generalizability is related to the
external validity, which guarantees the choice of a representative sample of the overall research
target (Reis & Judd, 2000). As all interviews are with entrepreneurs from Moscow, which is very
different from other Russian cities and can be probably seen as a separate context unit, the question
arises if these respondents are representative of the whole Russian population.
All in all, the qualitative research method used in this study, makes it possible to gain and
find common insights, develop a theory on each country's level and then compare it.

32
 4. Results

This section covers the description of the key themes using the interview transcripts, which
are the basic source for the following research analysis. After first being reviewed manually, the
transcripts were used to track patterns and to develop global categories. This allowed adding
relevant quotes from the interview transcripts to each category and provide an understanding of how
each theme contributes to the whole picture. The following findings, based on 15 semi-structured
interviews, address the sub-questions and underlying objectives that are required to correctly
answer the main Research Question:

Sub-question 1: Which peculiarities of female entrepreneurship favour or threaten the start-up

initiative and its further success?
Sub-question 2: How are these peculiarities different in Russia and the Netherlands?
Since the questions asked during the interviews were open, the responses are diverse. In
order to identify which factors drive women to start up and in order to understand whether it is a
well-planned decision, three main categories of the factors influencing entrepreneurial decisions
were distinguished, corresponding with the past theory of Arenius & Minniti (2005):
sociodemographic factors, perceptual variables and contextual factors. However, the data derived
from the interviews leads to the development of more categories based on patterns in the responses
and background profiles of the respondents. The following are the themes which were not the initial
aim of this research: "Learning in Practice", "Male Support", "Entrepreneur: born or made", "High-
life Standards", "Business as a Part of Life", "Self-Confidence", "Trading across Borders",
"Business Strategy" and others. Although all additional findings represent important information,
the content size of this Thesis is limited, and thus only the most important results will be shown.
While analysing the findings, it becomes clear that the groups of factors do not stand on their own
and are usually connected with each other. Although the relations between them are principally
addressed in the Discussion chapter, a primary level of understanding is provided in this Chapter
when it is essential.

4.1 Sociodemographic factors

In an attempt to dive deeper into the actual content of the factors that have an impact, the
analysis resulted in a further division of the sociodemographic factors. The sub-categories that were
found are: Age, Education, Entrepreneurial Parents, Current Job Status, Undesirable Working
Conditions, and others.

33
 4.1.1 Age

As can be seen from the Appendix 2, the age of the Dutch participants is more diverse,
mostly concentrating at 30-ish (only one participant is younger than 25), whereas the majority of the
Russian entrepreneurs are under 30. At the same time, the average age of the enterprises founded by
the interviewees is the same in both countries – 1.5 years. This could be a sign that Russian
entrepreneurs tend to start up right after finishing their studies, while Dutch entrepreneurs prefer to
wait a few more years in order to obtain the appropriate experience. However, the average work
experience (gained before starting up) of the Russian females is 1 year more than that of the Dutch
ones. As the participants were asked specifically about full-time jobs, not necessarily related to the
studies, but excluding part-time jobs and internships, an assumption can be made that Russian
entrepreneurs start working earlier, and thus, probably earlier realize that they want to start their
own business.

"At first I was a ballet dancer. I had been working in this field for many years…This was my first education. Then I
began my studies at the faculty of journalism and there I have realized that I can’t rely on dancing for the rest of my
life."
Interview #6, Russia

"I started studying languages, which later turned out to be useful. But in my second year I realized that I’m doing
something I wouldn’t like to do after getting my diploma. I don’t wanna do it, so I won’t."
Interview #2, Russia

4.1.2 Education

As can be seen from the answers of the participants, there is a wide diversity in their
educational background. While some of them gained appropriate competencies in their universities,
others agreed that the first education was not useful for their future choice of the entrepreneurial
path and they either continued studying special courses or chose to learn in practice. Concerning the
degree that the entrepreneurs have, the findings show that all the participants from Russia have a
master degree unlike the Dutch ones who show that it is either not really necessary or they do not
perceive it as obligatory. Perhaps such difference is bound to the fact that in the Russian business
society it is not acceptable to have a lower degree.
Here a subject from the Netherlands describes the advantages of her first law degree: "…it’s
awesome that I’m a lawyer, because I know all these rules, you know… And if I don’t know them, I
know where to look them up." (Participant, №13)
Some other females from the Netherlands agree on the topic:

"I did a master in International development studies. LP [name of the company] is connected to the studies, because
having your own business has a lot of business aspects to it."
Interview #12, the Netherlands

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"I did international business. It’s very practical, a lot about import, export, international economic stuff."
Interview #10, the Netherlands

At the same time fewer women from Russia have gained business related education and no
one has a specific business degree which can stem from the fact that education in this field became
popular only a few decades ago after entrepreneurial activities started to be widespread.
One of the entrepreneurs regrets not having a business-related education so far and expresses
that the knowledge she has is not enough: "I don’t have any business education at all. I mean
thanks to my adaptive skills I’m a fast learner, but business education is really essential. I’m
thinking of starting studying something." At the same time, Participant №4 says that she would like
to take a floral design tutorial course which shows that doing business is a many-sided process and
includes many skills which cannot be obtained altogether while studying at the university: "My
friend has just done a course in floristic and I would like to do the course too." An interesting fact
is that this woman is one of the two Russian entrepreneurs who was still working full-time at the
moment of being interviewed and she stated that she cannot be fully involved in the business. This
could be one of the factors that prevent Participant №4 from quitting the job and investing all her
time and resources in the business.
An important note is that most Russian entrepreneurs start following additional courses
directly connected with their businesses as soon as they start up and they realise that it is an
essential part of their success: "I’ve just taken a course of cycle training in order to be a certified
trainer. I also entered college and in a week I will start my classes and become a professional
fitness trainer... I won’t be a trainer, but I need it in order to keep in touch with people. Actually, I
don’t need this paper. I would rather have a business in this sphere than be a trainer." (Participant
№1)
By contrast, only one Participant, №13, obtained professional education in the sphere of her
business: "So I went to Italy to the Gelato University. And I did a Gelato course there." The rest of
the Dutch entrepreneurs chose to teach themselves in practice.
The next sub-section will introduce this topic, although it is not a sub-category of the
sociodemographic factors.

4.1.3 Learning in practice

As some entrepreneurs often lack the competencies required to run a business, they start
teaching themselves with the help of special tutorials from the Internet, social media or academic
literature. It is partly caused by the fact that education requires an extra investment of time and
money, which the entrepreneurs often cannot afford.

35
"…when I was opening my website I also didn’t have, you know… it costs money to hire somebody to help you. So I
was doing everything myself, all the programming stuff, read a lot about coding and stuff like that."
Interview #9, the Netherlands

"Sometimes I teach my nail-masters, even though I don’t have specialized education in nail art. I didn’t take any
classes. At some point I even thought of taking some nail-art classes, but then I have decided that there is no reason for
me to do this. Why should I spend more time on them? Anyway I watch so many different videos on how to create
different designs. There is no need for me to learn how cuticle is trimmed for that."
Interview #6, Russia

On the other hand, many participants agreed that they want to first learn every detail of the
business operation themselves in order to be able to fully control it in the future: "I really wanted to
do something that I know from scratch, how everything works. I want to experience everything
myself." (Participant №13)
What is more, being at the start-up or expansion stage of their business development, the
entrepreneurs of both countries declared not being ready for extra costs caused by hiring other
managers or outsourcing tasks.

"As for the web-site for our salon, I created it myself, at night. Using the web-site template, of course, but the fact is
that I have spent my time on it, I didn’t give it to someone for outsourcing. I try my best to do as much as possible by
myself, without any outside help, I learn how to do it. The point is not that it saves money. Firstly, I want to probe
deeply into everything myself. Therefore, why would I hire an extra person? What for, if I can still cope by myself?
Interview #6, Russia

"And then I just don’t have enough money to have employees at the moment. We have just started. But eventually there
11will, obviously, be people hired."
Interview #13, the Netherlands

The majority of the females said that they want to understand all the details of business
administration. However, only respondents from Russia expressed their unwillingness to pass their
responsibilities onto strangers. This can be due to the Russian culture mentality where individuals
tend to have a sense of distrust towards other people.

"…if you don't manage a business yourself, another person, firstly, can deceive you, and, secondly, do everything for
his own needs. And then you will realize that you can't weigh in, because you hardly understand half of what’s going
on. Of course, the best is to explore this whole thing from the inside and from the very opening of the company. I can’t
trust anyone with it yet. It was hard for me to hire a manager. When you do it yourself, everything is better."
Interview #5, Russia

Besides, Participant №13 admits that even though she had already obtained a Gelato degree,
she still had to practice a lot until she achieved a certain quality: "It’s not too hard to learn how to
make it. It takes a lot of exercise after that."

36
 4.1.4 Entrepreneur type

The interesting fact to notice is that females that have the most solid work experience in
Russia (Participant №6) and the Netherlands (Participant №14) - 12 and 10 years accordingly - are
both serial entrepreneurs, where Participant №14 is the only non-first-time entrepreneur among all
the Dutch participants. First-time, or novice, entrepreneurs are those who do not have any prior
business ownership experience either as a "business founder, an inheritor or a purchaser of an
independent business, but who currently own a minority or majority equity stake in an independent
business that is either new, purchased or inherited" (Westhead et al., 2005). Serial entrepreneurs are
viewed as individuals who in the past have sold or closed down a company which they at least
partly owned and now currently run another business. It is also noticeable that there is one Russian
portfolio entrepreneur (Participant №2) who is currently an owner of other independent businesses.

"…at the age of about 25 I came up with the idea of a DUB project. Alongside it there was a story with private clients
and an image studio. It’s still working. And also a new branch, I mean teaching, appeared."
Interview #2, Russia

4.2 Contextual factors

In order to understand the prerequisites that motivate or deter women to make a decision to
start their own business, I decided to ask all the participants about their Work Experience and
Current Job Status. After the iterative review of the answers, patterns in the data allowed for a
division of these categories into the following subcategories, which are usually very connected as
one stems from another: Earning More Money and Quitting a Job. These topics can be both related
to such categories as sociodemographic factors or contextual Factors. As all the factors turned out
to considerably affect the females’ behaviour, I introduced a new category called Undesirable
Working Conditions.

4.2.1. Undesirable working conditions

From the research findings in regard to Work Experience, it can be seen that females were
driven to become entrepreneurs by either necessity or opportunity. The necessity to become an
entrepreneur is often due to the shifting employment conditions. The "push" factors such as Glass
Ceiling, Avoiding Unreasonable Boss or Unsafe Working Conditions, which were described by
many Russian entrepreneurs, are called Undesirable Working Conditions in this study.
Due to the up-and-downs in the Russian economy during last decade, employment in many
sectors started to fall apart and a great number of people were losing their jobs. Not only were the

37
wages declining, but also many positions became redundant as they did not meet the needs of the
market anymore. This lead to massive unemployment and some females faced the perspective of
changing their lives by becoming entrepreneurs. Participant №1 describes a "very severe crisis" she
had after she had left her job very emotionally: "I’ve been working in bank for two years. Then one
day the bank system began to break down. Like in any soviet structure, all the independent, smart,
self-motivated people who had a strong desire to grow were depressed instead. I asked my boss for
a wage rise. He said he agreed that I was worthy and he would increase it. But finally he didn’t give
any raises until my discharge. The whole situation was going on for a year…When I came to sign
papers I noticed a 25% wage cut instead of the pay rise so I refused to sign it. Our HR manager put
a strain on me and told that he would fire me…I knew damn well that I didn’t stand a chance. They
depressed me constantly…In the summer I was really stressed." Participant №3 had a similar
disappointing experience: "They told me: "You know, we are looking for a person for your
position". It was a big shock for me. I was frustrated, why didn’t they appreciate me as I worked
very well."
Another Participant, №6, from Russia says: "…it is nice to have your own business. It is
much better than to sit in an office and realize that any moment an unscheduled layoff can begin
and, no matter how good you are as an employee, your position can be simply laid off."

Avoiding Unreasonable Boss

Hereafter the same participants agree that one of the benefits of being self-employed is being
your own boss and thus being independent:

"…and my kind boss always ready to make concessions to me turned into a person shouting at the top of his lungs."
Interview #1, Russia

"When our department was reformed and we started to feel some perturbations, I began to think that it’s time to stop
working for somebody, it’s time to start my own business, because ‘somebody’ always decides how much he’s gonna
pay me. It’s a fact. All the jobs I had sound really cool but in fact I didn’t get big money there. There’s always been a
big boss who dictated his terms...the fact that somebody has an impact on you…So I started to understand that I need
my own business."
Interview #6, Russia

The link between the push and pull factors that motivate women to start up can be seen from
the last answer. The Opportunity to Work Independently, Desire to Have Greater Control Over
One's Work and Earn More Money go hand in hand with Unsafe Working Conditions and Avoiding
Unreasonable Boss. This proves the close connection between the push and pull drivers and that
one can result in another. The next sub-categories are dedicated to the analysis of this topic.

38
 Earn More Money

This driver can be seen as both a push and pull factor depending on the situation. When a
person is being ambitions and not just needs to satisfy his primary needs, Earn More Money is
considered a pull factor in this study, like in case of Participant №2 from Russia. This female is a
portfolio entrepreneur and describes her path to the current business drawing her attention from one
project to another: "I have seen that, although I’m good at doing this stuff, there was no income. So
it turned out that step by step I switched to my own image studio and productio...Together with this,
I continued working as a stylist, I was filming, stylizing ad campaigns, creating style for people…So
at the age of 23 I understood that it’s great…but I was lacking some high financial indicators." She
continues regretfully: "All these activities are good but they all have one thing in common: you get
no money for your work in the Russian fashion industry. And I had to do some more commercial
things, which could give me money."

Limited Advancement Opportunities

Participant №1 introduces the topic of Limited Advancement Opportunities stating that it is

typical for Russian companies. She admits that if it was not for the glass ceiling that did not let her
engage in the upper management positions and have a higher income, she would probably not be
forced to start up: "I was absolutely fine concerning my career in the bank. So in case of a
promotion prospect, I would possibly be working there till now…but there was an atmosphere
where everybody had their progress limit. I outstripped myself there long ago. I understood
everything. I knew how the system works, I knew exactly whom can I ask to start any process. I was
working as a manager, but could be in charge of the whole department and have a position of a
director. But the promotion was impossible due to my age. Just imagine a young girl that came to
the bank as an employee. They even asked: "Are you 18 years old?"

4.2.2 Quitting a job

One of the most important finding is that a closer look at the patterns derived from the
females’ responses shows that none of the Dutch participants said anything about entering
entrepreneurship out of a necessity neither due to undesirable working conditions, nor to an
unsatisfaction with a job status or income. In contrast with the Russian entrepreneurs, the decision
to quit the job was always well-planned, which proves the opportunity nature of Dutch female
entrepreneurship. Participant №10 says that "it was really difficult to make the decision…do I leave
this job for something that is unsecure". She says it took her "a lot of energy and a lot of thinking
time, but actually once the decision was made, it felt like a huge relief and a very satisfying

39
decision". This woman is one of the two social entrepreneurs, the specific group of people who
"start and develop new initiatives where the value of the (local, regional) society is put before the
value of the individuals leading these initiatives" (GEM, 2013)
The study of this phenomenon was not the aim of this research, but as it is apparently a huge
trend in the West-European society nowadays, the author accidently found two representatives of
such business direction. Another social entrepreneur – Participant №13 showed a remarkable
motive for quitting a job, being typical for social entrepreneurship, but very different from the
responses of the other 12 interviewed women: "It was like a typical law firm…I was constantly
under the impression that I was helping the wrong people. Because, you know, people there were
really commercial. I was thinking then it’s great that those people achieved so much, but I have
seen in my life already so many other people who need more help, and I felt very privileged to help
with that knowledge, so I just quit there." Another Participant, №11, says that making a lot of
money out of her business for herself is not the goal, which is a principal feature of social
entrepreneurship: "This is fair trade, because I think those women deserve it, because they make
beautiful bracelets. I want to pay them a reasonable price to support them, their family and their
businesses."
A substantial fact to note is that there were no social entrepreneurs among Russian
respondents.

4.2.3 Presence of role models

The findings show that some females follow the example of other successful women:

"…then I visited a daughter of my mom’s friend, she is a goldsmith. I wanted to see her and see what she was doing and
how she made her living. It was just when it hit me. Like, yeah, this is what I wanna do."
Interview #15, the Netherlands

"I was really inspired by the story of NS [name of the company]. I liked them so much… If they can do it I can do it
too, can’t I?"
Interview #6, Russia

In April the following answer was received from a serial entrepreneur, №14, (she was being
interviewed among the first in the Netherlands): "I was always committed to business. I was
brought up by my mother. She was a successful business entrepreneur. So I was inspired by her
since I was young." Subsequently, the descision was made to ask all interviewees if their parents
were also entrepreneurs. The answers turned out to be suprising. The majority of the females from
Russia had either one or two parents who own a business. In contrast, only 3 out of 8 females from
the Netherlands have entrepreneurial parents.

40
 In general, all three not novice entrepreneurs admitted that they had access to role models
who either encouraged or mentored women entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses.

4.2.4 Environment support

Environment Support was found to be one of the factors that influence women the most.
Females often lack self-confidence and an overall confidence that their activity has a lucrative
potential. Sometimes women just do not realize that they can transform their lovely hobby or an
innovative idea into a high-yielding business. In this situation social approval gives benefits with
regard to self-perceptions of the entrepreneur that motivate them to engage in entrepreneurial
activities. In my study the environmental conditions include the degree of encouragement and
support by friends, relatives, family and formal institutions. Good contact with the environment can
bring a valuable network and presence of role models. Besides, social support can also provide
females with essential advice and contacts with investors or the right people as in case of Participant
№ 7: "So, when I came back to Moscow I called my friend and I told her about this idea and she
told me that she is in. We started working on our business plan and on the idea asking people who
would like to join our project." The same pattern is seen in the answer of the portfolio entrepreneur
№ 2: "It turned out that many of our acquaintances work in the area of finance. Even though they
didn’t work with projects like ours, they helped us reach other people who could help with
financing".
Another significant finding is that in the majority of cases in both countries, the first
customers are friends. They prove that product or service is in demand, thus convincing the
entrepreneurs that the idea is successful and can be put into action.

"So I started with really basic, you know, selecting your friends, like really basic selling to your friends, like saying:
"oh, guys can you support me, please, I’m trying to do this thing?" I was trying to see if it works out and then they
bought some simple presents."
Interview #15, the Netherlands

"Why I started the business? Because I started making earrings and saw that everybody liked them. Why earrings, why
jewellery? I just wanted it for myself. And then when somebody wanted the same, I thought maybe I could sell that."
Interview #9, the Netherlands

"…on a daily basis I have a lot of friends that help make ice cream or sell it. It’s just friends and family, supporting
from all the sides. And in the beginning your clients are also people you know."
Interview #13, the Netherlands

"Then our friends recommended us to their friends or people from social networks. Now we have orders from other
people, not only our friends…it wasn’t a problem to find the first clients because these were our friends…"
Interview #4, Russia

41
 Friends and family were also found to considerably help start-uppers investing their time
and physical activity:

"If it’s a difficult decision like financial planning or some legal issues, I just ask all my friends. We have dinner, I ask
somebody who studies finance like "Guys, I need some plans for the next month, I don’t know this and this." And we
brainstorm it."
Interview #10, the Netherlands

"Usually relatives and friends come in handy. They give their cars, when they see that you are in a hurry. Our fathers
do some male work like cutting, constructing. Our brothers can help us hang something heavy. We don’t hire anyone;
our families help us."
Interview #4, Russia

"At first I did everything by myself or with my boyfriend's mother and my mother… At the initial stage my friends
helped a lot…many of them visited the first opening. They wrote in their Instagram and Facebook accounts about a new
salon opening. They brought their friends, mothers, aunts and bosses."
Interview #5, Russia

Sometimes the environment just helps an entrepreneur to recognize the opportunity: "We
noticed that it was the time when many of our friends were getting married. They asked us to make
some decorations, bouquets." (Participant №4)
Participant № 12 shares her interesting story. "I read once about an organization for people
who want to start up, they could pitch it there. At that time, I had a totally different business idea.
So I decided to go there, and accidentally brought tea with me. They listened to my idea and they
were like "this tea is great", and I was like "no, that’s the next idea". But after I also met people
from other start-ups and ended up having these people try the tea. More and more people tried and
liked the business idea about the tea." She says that she got confirmed by these people and that was
the moment she realized that she saw a commercial perspective. This woman also mentions that
such an event was helpful for advice, but "was not related to financial means."
It was found among the Russian entrepreneurs that friends were the main source of
financing the new enterprise. In contrast, there were fewer Dutch females whose friends helped
them financially. This can be linked firstly, to the fact that the Dutch entrepreneurs were on average
5 years older than the Russian ones and could afford to use their own savings. What is more, as
Russian females tend to start up impulsively, they did not have as many options as if they would if
they had it well-planned and had time to seek for money. The question of financial support from the
friends’ side will be investigated in more detail in Start Up Capital sub-section.
Only one participant, №7, from Russia talks about the friendship topic in a negative light
saying that it is better to avoid hiring friends who "are irresponsible and don’t take it seriously".
She says that she asked many friends to help her with the project and "when you start working with
friends there are some psychological things that…when you want people to finish the task in your

42
way and they do it in another way. You try to explain them in a friendly way and they don’t get it".
After such a disappointing experience this female entrepreneur now hires people that are not her
friends. Nevertheless, she says: "But me and my partner are really good with each other, so we
understand each other and we don’t really have any difficulties between us."

4.2.5 Male support

The patterns in the answers of the females on this topic lead to the most interesting findings.
Initially, the respondents were asked whether they feel that having male qualities is an essential part
of doing a business and if they ever felt being discriminated by males. After a few answers on this
topic, patterns were revealed. It was decided then to include some new questions in the guideline
like "Did you have a partner when you started up?" and "Did he help you?" If the answers to the
previous questions were positive, females were asked if they think they would start up without the
male support.
The findings are astounding. All the females, except those two who did not have a partner at
the moment of starting up, had received great support from their men. They either helped them
financially, mentally or physically (by performing various business-related activities). The decision
to quit their job among the respondents from the two countries was often based on the fact that a
partner was ready to support the woman financially as in case of Participant №12: "Quitting my job,
yes, it was really related to the fact that he supported that decision and that he was able to support
that decision". Participant №1 states that her boyfriend ensured the possibility to act on an
opportunity and increased her confidence: "You see my boyfriend helps me a lot. We are living
together. He pays for the everyday life expenses. I wouldn’t leave my job without his help." The
social entrepreneur № 13 expresses that if she simply could not pay her rent at the end of the month,
she would have probably not been able to dare to start a business: "I’m very fortunate that my
boyfriend and I, we live together. I’m living on my own savings at the moment, but obviously, what
plays a role, is your financial security. At some point I will be dependent financially on him for a
while…"
The fact that women from both countries can depend on their partners until their business
grows up enough and they can earn their livings shows that male support is one of the factors that
favour the start-up initiative most. This answers all the sub-questions of this Thesis, thus answering
the main Research Question.
Yet Participant №12 states, like the majority of the females from the Netherlands, that even
if their partners did not support them, they would anyways have started up as they could afford it,
having enough expertise and personal savings: "…the idea of doing something for myself started

43
when we were together but this is not closely related to the fact of being together. That was my
decision and I think I would have done it anyway, doing what was mine, and what felt right for me."
Participant №15 shares her vision saying that she tries to be independent as much as possible:
"…my boyfriend helps out a lot during markets and festivals and it’s great. At the beginning it was
mostly mental support. Financially he doesn’t help me at all, and I’m really proud of that…It
should be my job and it should be my responsibility. I didn’t do it just because I was thinking "I’ve
got a boyfriend so he can help me." I would have done it even if I didn’t have a boyfriend."
Another social entrepreneur, Participant №10, who was raised by two lesbian mothers,
believes in feminism and women independence. Although she agrees with the previous respondent
that if she didn’t have her boyfriend she would still have started her business, she says that he is
very supportive. This respondent, like four other Dutch females, has a long-lasting non-formal
relationship: "We’ve been together for 15 years. If I have a dream, it’s his dream… so he does
everything. If I have an appointment in the morning and I don’t have time for breakfast, he makes
me breakfast."
There is a number of females from both Russia and the Netherlands who say that financial
management is not one of their strengths and this is where their men come in: "I wouldn’t cope with
all this without him. All legal and financial aspects are not my scene. Anything is possible if
desired, but it's definitely easier with a shoulder to lean on." (Participant №5)
One of the most significant results is that those two females from Russia who do not have
husbands have lower risk propensity keeping a job alongside their own business. Participant №4
wants to avoid risk and honestly admits that if she was married, she would risk to leave her job and
fully involve herself in the business: "Now it is more like a hobby, it’s not big. I can’t earn a living
just by having it. If I leave my current job and spend at least 8 hours a day for business matters, I
think it would be more profitable. Then it could be successful. But now I don’t want to risk. I would
do it only if I felt a strong male support."
Another Participant, №7, says that at the moment she is working on her project combining it
with a freelance job: "I quit A [name of the company] in April. Then I started this project with my
friend…. So, I’ve been working on it for 6 months and then I started the temporary job again. You
know, when you start something new, it’s not stable and you always need to think forward, you need
some money for life and you need to invest…"
Interestingly, Participant №3 who has probably the most creative business says that her
husband is a musician by vocation and does not earn that much money. She regrets that he cannot
support her financially: "As I'm a woman, I would be happy to get financial support from a man. As
for moral support, sure, he always tells me to continue drawing and that I will succeed in it. He

44
understands, he feels, that it inspires me." Something to highlight is that the partner of Participant
№3 is the only man who is not businessman or office manager among all 13 partners of the females.

4.3 Subjective perceptions

The findings of this study show that the factors that drive women to see an entrepreneurial
opportunity are very diverse. However, no matter what influenced their decision, the respondents
from both countries find a way to express their creativity.

4.3.1 Creative skills

All entrepreneurs mentioned that they have creative skills and a part of them state that they
missed the possibility to use the flow of their creative energy to their advantage while being a
wageworker.

"I wanted to try a calm office job, I was wondering what it was like. Also, it could give me an interesting experience
because it was something new for me. So I decided to get a serious job. You know, in a state company. At first it was
good, interesting, new! But then I realized that I was bored. It wasn’t enough for me. I even started my own show about
tattoos on YouTube [the first project of this serial entrepreneur], for fun."
Interview #6, Russia

"This is how I can be creative because in psychology there is no way you can be creative, you just do research and talk
to people. And it wasn’t for me, not at all, so I thought then "well, I’m going to make something out of this" and that’s
how I started."
Interview #15, the Netherlands

The Dutch Participant №11 is one of the 3 interviewees who have children. She says that
after working for 10 years in a bank her desire to turn creativity into something tangible interacts
with a necessity to combine it with taking care of her children. Thus, "the only thing that's possible
is to do your own business, because you're flexible with the working hours."

4.3.2 Alertness to unexploited opportunities

This factor turned out to be very closely related to such Contextual factors as Environment
Support, Start Up Capital and Partner Support. All participants said that they were able to start up
when they either felt support from their friends who accepted their novel idea as a successful one or
helped the entrepreneur financially.
The serial entrepreneur №14 says: "I found it very odd that there was nothing, that was there
for your inner circle… And once I started thinking of this concept, I couldn’t get it out of my head
that it had to be there. I was speaking to people and this is how we created from this concept the
way it could work." At the same time, she notices that the reason why she could start up was that,
luckily, one of her team members happened to have a good relationship with a big investor from the

45
Netherlands. This proves that the ability to identify new opportunities is not enough to become an
entrepreneur.
All participants, not depending whether they have businesses in Russia or the Netherlands,
agree that they did not start up without a feeling that this was the right time and the right place.
Thus, they felt more confident to quit their jobs and perform entrepreneurial activities. However,
the answers of the Russian respondents show that that they tend to react on opportunity very fast
and are more ready for spontaneous actions rather than a continuous preparation as in case of the
females from the Netherlands. The same pattern was noticed concerning the decision to quit a job,
which was found to be always well-planned for the Dutch entrepreneurs and usually unexpected for
Russian ones.

"…on the 30th of August I told my boyfriend that I came up with a very interesting idea…Late at night, I typed "loft"
and found a perfect place…I didn’t think much about where to get the money from… I just came home and in a day I
had the money. On the 3rd of September we started the redecoration. So, roughly speaking, all this took me a day or
two."
Interview #2, Russia

"...then my boyfriend found a place and said that it was the best time to open a salon, so that's why we did it."
Interview #5, Russia

"…And once we met certain people who said: "Why are you sitting down doing nothing? It’s a great idea, go for it!"
That was the beginning, and everything started moving so fast. In fact, it took only two weeks from the moment we
decided to start till we found a place."
Interview #6, Russia

"…So my husband suggested creating my own project. We decided to go for it. Then we bought a professional camera
and gym equipment. He always asked me before: "Why are you crazy about fitness and work in the bank?"
Interview #1, Russia

There is also another common pattern among the last 3 of the above-mentioned participants
that differentiates them, leading to the next topic for analysis.

4.3.3 Male qualities or feminity?

When asked if they feel that femininity plays a role in acting as an entrepreneur and it would
be easier to cope with challenges being a man, many females answered that they had not thought
about this topic before. However, after some time they expressed different positions. Remarkably,
two females from the Netherlands and Russia shared the same feeling, honestly saying that
investors don’t take them seriously unless their boyfriends accompany them. Participant №10 boils
over: "For some reason people think that men know marketing, numbers, and girls just make
jewellery which is absolute nonsense! OK, I understand I’m not very good with financing unlike my
boyfriend, but still…" Participant №5 makes an assumption that "men have a certain behaviour

46
pattern, connections, they know how to negotiate" and confesses that she is not "firm enough to
negotiate easily with different people". "You should have a certain character", - she adds.
Participant №13 agrees that sometimes she can feel a different attitude. She says: "...if
you’re a female entrepreneur, you have to be hard in a certain way. But nobody expects you to be
hard because then you immediately get a reputation of a bitch." The situation turns out to be tricky.
If women start acting like men who "are more aggressive in their negotiation tactic" because they
"like to be respected", they are perceived "bitchy". Then the question arises: what do females need
to do in order to achieve the same as men would achieve without "being too forward, too bossy"
and "asking too much?"
Two most experienced females from the Netherlands have found a solution after building
their professional careers alongside men. The answer is simple. In order to easier achieve same as
men would without making so much effort, females just need to accept their nature and turn it to
work for their advantage: "What does work is if you just take this stereotype, and you just live with
it. So what helps me a lot is trying to act like a woman." The advice from Participant №13 is to "use
the kitty-cat eyes, be really female-like, friendly and chatty." She says that eventually she always
gets what she wants with the help of such phrases as "Oh, oh, sorry, I didn’t know it was like that",
"Listen, I’m really new in this business", "Oh, sorry, could you carry that for me?" Otherwise "they
will not treat you like you think they would treat a normal person. They’d treat you like in my case –
as a small blond woman." Same female notices that the secret is in pretending "that you don’t know
some things even if you know exactly what they are gonna tell you, but it helps to actually open the
door and go into the new field. There’s just nothing more you can do about it." However, the
participant from Russia has an opposite point of view saying that she does not feel any
discrimination from the male side: "…when I’m working with people I’m not soft, I’m not like a
girl, you know, trying to be nice and polite". She says when she was not assertive, people "didn’t
take it seriously".
Nevertheless, many females from the Netherlands stated that in their type of business being
a woman benefits their activity:

"I’ve never experienced that I’m being treated differently because I’m a woman. I think it has worked for my advantage.
I have very good relationship with all my clients."
Interview #12, the Netherlands

"My business is a women’s business. But I think that a man in my position would have the same struggles."
Interview #11, the Netherlands

To sum up, it is "definitely a challenge how to position yourself as a woman in this male
entrepreneurial world." (Participant №13)

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 4.4. Why small business?

Evidence from the responses reveals that female business owners prefer to participate in
small sectors that target women as the main consumers of retail and services. The activities of the
Dutch participants were primarily concentred around retail, mostly selling jewellery (5 out of 8
participants), whereas Russian interviewees mainly have service-oriented businesses. The reasons
for these choices differ among the entrepreneurs, involving such factors as: "easier to enter",
"staying flexible", "being closer to the customer", "a chance to demonstrate creativity", "doing with
your own hands" and "trying yourself":

"…And thought why not start doing something, like a little thing because making notebooks for me is not global. But
it’s a perfect opportunity to try yourself."
Interview #7, Russia

"… I thought I want to do something creative. At least, something…If I can really choose, I would like to produce
something. Something that I’m making with my own hands and I’m selling it, instead of, you know, using a retailer or
other business types like a franchise to somebody else…"
Interview #13, the Netherlands

The last participant also states that she likes the benefit of controlling the business herself
and immediately influencing many people which is important in social initiatives: "… if you just
have your own business, you can just do it. You’re always the boss. I like that. And what I also feel
is that by doing it you already reach so many people, because I have to tell my story so many
times."
One of the most common factors mentioned by the jewellery-makers was "requiring less
start-up capital," which enabled females to start on their own without looking for an outside
investment:

"…so I had so many ideas and I just decided to start the easiest one which doesn’t need a whole lot of money. I’d like to
make furniture, but I need a very big building and a pick-up track and a lot of expensive equipment. So it was easier to
start with something small, that I could start in my living room."
Interview #8, the Netherlands

"I started very small, I didn’t have a lot of money to start up, because I was just a poor student and that’s all I had to
spend, and my mom and dad aren’t very rich, so I had to do it myself."
Interview #15, the Netherlands

"I started with it because the jewellery part is not so expensive, so it doesn’t need much investment."
Interview #9, the Netherlands

The social entrepreneur №11 mentions "combining with motherhood" advantage of the small
business size: "When I decided to stop working I thought this was a nice thing to do, besides, you
know, taking care of my children but also doing something for myself, that wouldn't take a lot of

48
time." She is happy her business does not hamper enjoying her children grow up: "I didn't really see
my children when I was working full-time for a bank from 8:30 till 18:00."

4.5 Challenges

The problems of women-owned businesses in Russia and the Netherlands that were
investigated are very diverse. The common ones include "hiring employees", "delegating",
"managing time", "lack of self-confidence" and many others. One female from the Netherlands talks
about collaboration with unreliable suppliers, others about the importance of finding good team
members and knowing "right people" or having useful connections. Participant №6 from Russia
says that it is always hard for her to fire: "I always mentally prepare myself". Participant №1, as
well as Participant №4, describes the difficulty of sharing a common vision: "It’s hard to find
people who are ready to be loyal and follow you. When I started my trainings I realized how
difficult it is to involve people in it."
One of the unexpected findings was the pattern of communication barriers for many
entrepreneurs of both countries: "I sometimes found it difficult to sell and to communicate with all
kinds of people. You need to have good vibes and energy and always be friendly and open minded."
However, Participant №11 assures that in everyday life she is very good at socializing and explains
that with customers it's different because "they only stop by for a few minutes and you have to get as
much as you can out of it without being annoying." She also faces the consequences of high
expertise consumer demands of the established market economy: "There are a lot of picky
customers". She and Participant №3 raise a common problem of not being able to sell: "Maybe I
just need to be a bit more of an aggressive seller."
At the same time Participant №3 stresses the fear of communicating with an audience, just
like Participant №6 who says: "I’m sociophobic to a certain degree. That’s why I didn’t like
working in the office… And in the beginning it was hard for me to answer the calls. I forced myself
to speak." Participant №1 also turned out to be an introvert "I was sitting in the bank for a long time
and didn’t even communicate with anybody."
The last one is the challenge of learning every business aspect from scratch. Participant №12
notes: "…every day there was something new coming up, which I didn’t know about and I had to
learn… I couldn’t have known everything from what I’ve done before."
Participant №13 recognizes that "ice cream making is a male world", thus introducing next
part of this chapter.

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 4.6 Start up capital

One of the most surprising findings is that none of the females used such kind of an outside
investment as a loan in a bank. The answers prove that women entrepreneurs prefer to use their own
savings or borrow money from their friends and family. Participant № 1 even calls it "FFF." She
explains it in a jesting manner: "These are all those who can invest you. It means your family and
friends, who strongly believe in you, and fools." Two younger interviewees from Russia stated that
they had to ask their parents for a seed capital: "Initially we thought that we didn’t need a lot of
money …then we understood that we need more investment and asked our parents for help."
(Participant № 7)
The females also usually use personal savings because of the following reasons:

"As soon as the bank gives me a loan, they want to have a guarantee for the machine [expensive equipment for
producing ice cream]… And then they can just take it back at any given point."
Interview #13, the Netherlands

"In this case I would have to give someone a large percentage of the profits. Plus, if there is an investor, he always has
his own opinion on everything. But I want to do everything by myself."
Interview #5, Russia

However, even though at the initial stage the entrepreneurs avoid venturing capitalists or
business angels, afterwards they realize that in many cases it is impossible to stay afloat without
seeking outside investment. At some point all projects need further development.

"I understood that without financing our start-up is going to die. I clearly realized that we will attract big investors and
make this project grow further."
Interview #2, Russia

"Today we are in negotiations with investors. We hope they will provide us with money as we only have 10% of the
necessary investment."
Interview #1, Russia

At the same time, these two females talk about the current situation on the Russian market
saying respectively:

"…about 90% of start-ups die because they lack appropriate financing. There are no any foundations or organizations
which specialize in supporting fashion businesses".
Interview #2, Russia

"Crowdfunding doesn’t work in Russia. The thing is that you should promote your project and tell everybody that you
are starting up! But in the Russian culture everybody is worried that his idea can be stolen. All Russian people suffer
from it. But you must tell everybody about it and show your presentation, convincing that you are ready to start."
Interview #1, Russia

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 Ironic or not, but the tragedy described above happened to the last Participant few months
after the interview was taken. Investors she had negotiations with stole her idea.

4.7 Entrepreneur: born or made

It can be seen from the findings that recognizing the presence of opportunities is not the only
key to success. The prerequisites and capabilities are rooted in a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic
factors. In general, social support and financial resources are two of the most important factors that
all women mention in their speech. At the same time, a combination of professional skills and
behavioural characteristics is important criteria on the way to entrepreneurship. Participant №13
thinks that "it doesn’t really matter what you study. Because there are so many things that you have
to take care of and you cannot be an expert in everything. It’s impossible. But yeah, it’s true, like,
the financial thing is really important." She states that for a very long time she didn’t know that she
would like to be an entrepreneur, but she always had some thoughts like "Oh, yeah, I can always
just start something on my own." She says that she is not afraid of taking responsibility: "I’m a very
creative person and I have a lot of ideas. But I’m also not afraid to face the risk that it might not
succeed… I don’t think everyone can be an entrepreneur because not everyone is like this. To be an
entrepreneur you need to be a certain type of person."
Participant №2 highlights organizational and practical skills that play a vital role for an
entrepreneur: "I had to keep myself busy, and then I noticed that I’ve got an entrepreneurial drive, I
can buy something, sell it to someone, organize something, do something."

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 5. Discussion

The aim of this study was to investigate the peculiarities of Russian and Dutch female
entrepreneurs who own small businesses and to find out how they differ across the two countries.
The results of this study show that there are both similarities and differences among the
entrepreneurs regarding different aspects of business life. What is important, some findings are
opposite to what was expected and found in the existing literature. In addition, the analysis of
patterns in the answers of respondents resulted in a discovery of new insights to the literature.
Hereafter, the results of this study and those revealed by academic scholars are critically compared
in order to position the Thesis in a more theoretical context. Next, in section 5.2, practical
implications are given. Section 5.3 continues with the limitations of this study. Finally, directions
for the future research are discussed.
To begin with, in order to detect the peculiarities of female entrepreneurs acting in any
country or market, it is essential to clearly understand the prerequisites that drive women to start
their businesses and thus meet one of the objectives of this study.

5.1 Comparison with previous research

5.1.1 Sociodemographic factors

The combination of all the factors was found to significantly matter in both countries.
Firstly, in line with most scholars, the background data of the entrepreneurs, which includes such
sociodemographic factors as Age, Education, Previous Work Experience, Work Status, Income
(Earn More Money), Job Satisfaction (Undesirable Working conditions), proved to predict the
choice of an entrepreneurial path to large extent in both countries (e.g., Smallbone & Welter, 2001;
Levesque & Minniti, 2006). Interestingly, in contrast to the theory of Robinson et al. (1991), but in
accordance with Gartner (1985), Parental Heritage (Entrepreneurial Parents) was found to
determine the choice of entrepreneurship due to several reasons. Primarily, all three entrepreneurs
who already had Previous Entrepreneurship Experience before opening up the current business were
found to have entrepreneurial parents. One of them admitted that her mother was a role model to
her, which encouraged the female to start businesses one day. Despite the women from not saying
anything like Participant №14, perhaps because they simply do not realise the influence of their
parents' example, the majority of them have either one or two parents who own a business.
Something to mention is that the portfolio entrepreneur №2 also has entrepreneurial parents, which
is in line with the observation of Curran et al. (1991) that individuals whose parents have businesses

52
usually follow their parents’ footsteps and start up themselves. One of the most remarkable facts is
the way to a successful entrepreneurship of Participant №15, who started her business before
obtaining a Bachelor degree and without any work experience. A closer look at her personal details
reveals that she is the youngest female across all 15 interviewees and also has entrepreneurial
parents.
The access to Role Models was found by Minniti (2010) to be an objectively measurable
microeconomic factor that influence start-up propensity. Considering entrepreneurial parents as
Role Models, a link can be made between Entrepreneurial Parents, Self-Confidence and
Entrepreneur Type. Those participants, who have entrepreneurial parents in their background, saw
an example of a successful business development since childhood and were highly likely to do the
same. In accordance with Donckels et al. (1987) theory that the development of a portfolio of
businesses involves greater managerial skills, Participant №2 shows significant experience. As a
result of prior business ownership, the portfolio entrepreneur №2 has developed an impeccable
business reputation and a network of contacts which helps develop the business to a great extent.
Thus, the existence of entrepreneurial parents, consciously or not, can drive women become
entrepreneurs and lead to the overall success of a business operation. This finding is applicable to
the two countries being in the focus of study and therefore answers the Research Question.
Concerning the question whether the decision to become an entrepreneur is well-planned or
a result of subconscious motives, the findings cannot answer directly. On the one hand, many
Russian respondents answered that they squeezed the opportunity as soon as they discovered it.
Little time passed from the moment they caught the idea and opened the business, in contrary to the
females from the Netherlands who usually planned all the actions in advance. Such difference can
stem from cultural characteristics. The Russian culture, according to Gesteland (1999), is
polychromic, whereas the Dutch one is monochromic (see Figure 1). The latter one implies that
scheduling is very important to business people and they are less ready for spontaneous actions.
However, not all Dutch females actually planned to start up, as many factors had been having an
cumulative effect on them during their life time which influenced their own perceptions and
personal traits (Gartner, 1985).
The research struggles to answer which factors influenced the females’ decisions the most.
The interviews show that entrepreneurs are influenced by a combination of various factors
depending on certain settings (Kelley et al., 2011). Apart from the above-mentioned
sociodemographic factors, in line with many scholars, they also include perceptual variables and
contextual factors (e.g., Smallbone & Welter, 2001; Levesque & Minniti, 2006).

53
 5.1.2 Contextual factors and their connection to perceptual variables

What stands out is that some Russian females had to start up out of necessity, which was not
observed among the Dutch entrepreneurs. The GEM’s (2005) framework differentiates two main
reasons that trigger entrepreneurial behaviour: women either want to exploit a perceived business
opportunity or they are pushed into entrepreneurship because all other possibilities for work are
absent or unsatisfactory. In general, the analysis of the results showed that there is a huge difference
among the influence of working conditions on the entrepreneurs from Russia and the Netherlands.
While the former usually feel unsafe, unpaid and unappreciated, the latter are totally secured and
leave their jobs only because they feel they are ready for a change. Despite the Russian
entrepreneurs being driven by such a factor as "to earn more money", which can be considered both
a push and pull factor depending on the context, starting a business cannot be considered as an
employment opportunity with the highest expected return. This contradicts with the position of
Arenius & Minniti (2005), but is in line with Devine (1994) who found that self-employed females
earn less than female wage workers. This conclusion is supported by the participants, who admit
that they need to wait until their business will be able to generate a higher income and at the
moment cannot even earn their living as well as need to rely on their men.
Yet, the majority of the Russian entrepreneurs mentioned seeing the opportunity of "working
independently", "having greater control over their lives" and "expressing creative abilities".
Viewing these as pull factors, there is a conflict with the findings of Hisrich & Grachev (1995) that
the highest percentage of Russian females becomes entrepreneurs due to lack of job satisfaction.
Such contradiction can be a sign that the necessity nature of Russian female entrepreneurship is on
its way to a change. Though it should be taken into account that some females still call their
business "a hobby", because they cannot afford to quit their job and live on the money earned from
the business activities. What is more, some females still accept the idea of resuming their full-time
job status someday if their business does not appear to be profitable. These women confessed to
being used to high-life standards and always having spare money in contrast to the need to save and
carefully track their expenses. Therefore, the there is still a big room for improvement in the
Russian market economy. Females should enter entrepreneurship not because they are forced to, but
because they choose the employment opportunity with the highest expected return, as proposed by
Arenius & Minniti (2005). A woman’s decision to become an entrepreneur should be a result of a
maximization process when she compares the returns from overall activities that produce income
and selects the alternative of entrepreneurship because it seems to be the most lucrative option.

54
 The contextual factors such as environment support and male support were found to be some
of the most powerful extrinsic drivers for females from both the Netherlands and Russia. The
answers showed that friends, family and male partners (boyfriend or husband) not only provided
women with useful advice, improved self-confidence and labour help, but also in most cases were
the main source of financial investment. Moreover, in line with Minniti (2010), a good contact with
the environment helped access a spread network of new people who in one way or another ended up
to be involved in the business (became co-founders, team members, investors or co-workers).
A remarkable fact is that the environment support, being defined as an outside set of
conditions (contextual factor), was proved to be closely related to subjective perceptions of females
about entrepreneurship in accordance with Aldrich et al. (1989) and Shane et al. (2003). The
interviews transcripts revealed that friends and family, first of all, increased Alertness To
Unexploited Opportunities when they started to act as first customers, showing the demand for the
product or service, and thus creating an idea of commercializing a female’s hobby. What is more,
financial security and moral support assured by the environment strengthened Self-Confidence and
Risk Propensity, but decreased Fear of Failure, which is usually a serious barrier on the way to
pursue an idea. Arenius & Minniti (2005) considered Presence of Role Models one of the key
factors that shape women’s perception about entrepreneurship. The majority of females from Russia
and the Netherlands demonstrated that their friends and family often assisted them in access to other
people who appeared to become Role Models for the participants. In many cases entrepreneurial
parents were also found to act as Role Models for females.
Roberts & Tholen (1999) found that female entrepreneurs in transition economies were
more likely to start a business with their (non-formal) husband as a partner or guardian, whilst in
mature economies it was undoubtedly easier for women to act as entrepreneurs on their own. This
study reveals that in line with Roberts & Tholen (1999), all respondents from Russia who dared to
leave permanent job, agreed that the support of their men considerably affected their behaviour
enhancing their confidence in feasibility of an idea implementation. However, in line with the
research of Baines & Wheelock (1998), the (non-formal) husband and wife alliance in the
Netherlands was also proved to be efficient. Although most Dutch females, unlike the Russian ones,
do not accept that without financial, mental or labour help of their men they would not dare to start
up, the findings show that there is a place for such an assumption.

5.2 Strengths and practical implications

This study provides some useful insights and contributions to the existing literature,
entrepreneurial institutions and female entrepreneurs. To begin with, as a result of carrying out a

55
multiple case study, valuable in-depth insights are gained about peculiarities of female
entrepreneurship in Russia and the Netherlands. To some extent this is due to the method the
sample was chosen. The focus on the small business sector allowed narrowing the study up to a
certain degree, enhancing the rigor and making the given answers comparable. Semi-structured
interviews ensured that the interviewees could bring up any topic they found important to discuss
(Yin, 2009), which led to the investigation of new themes and introduction of additional findings.
This enabled the participants to honestly share their perceptions of reality that could not be visible
otherwise. Thus, this study, firstly, contributes to the existing literature by providing an in-depth
understanding of the contemporary peculiarities of female entrepreneurship that were not explored
by previously taken qualitative surveys or quantitative methods of research.
Secondly, this research allows finding out the challenges that women face when they want to
start up and afterwards when the business is growing. The environmental support was found to be
one of the key factors that favour the start-up initiative. When it comes to friends, family or male
partners, females easily receive such support. However, some do not succeed to get connections
with "the right people" because of the struggle to find them in their inner circle of friends.
According to GEM (2015), countries that facilitate easy access to start-up ecosystems have a higher
proportion of women who engage in entrepreneurship and contribute to the economies’ welfare.
Therefore, this Thesis is complementary to the findings of Isenberg (2010) suggesting that
governments need to create solid ecosystems, which assist entrepreneurs and increase visibility and
access to role models. This advice is especially applicable to Russian Government Institutions as
some females expressed regretfully that there is a lack of entrepreneurial organizations such as
business accelerators, incubators, co-working spaces as well as professional courses for
entrepreneurs. The poor education system in the entrepreneurship and innovation sector also
prevents women from engaging in these activities. The lack of affordable prior business education
slows down business development, forcing women to learn business peculiarities in practice and
make many mistakes before achieving success. What is more, a number of females in both Russia
and the Netherlands stated that they have problems with business communication, due to the fear of
public speech and contacting the audience. In addition to that, half of the participants from both
countries admitted that, when negotiating with men, they are not taken seriously. Therefore,
trainings that enhance business competencies like negotiation techniques and presentation skills, as
well as other initiatives such as mentoring and advising, should be provided by Government
Institutions or entrepreneurial organizations if the latter exist.
Thirdly, an important outcome of this study is that, contrary to the expectations, none of the
females received bank loans to finance their companies. The reasons for such avoidance are diverse,

56
but the findings in line with many previous studies (e.g., Carter & Rosa, 1998; Aidis & Estrin,
2006) show that women would rather borrow money from their family and friends. Although it is
sometimes enough to start up, the difficulty arises when women want to expand their business and
turn it into a medium-sized one. Better working mechanisms for business support, including
governmental grants, easier registration of business and available banking loans shall be provided
(Zhuplev & Shein, 2008).
Another important implication concerns social entrepreneurship. The main focus of such
type of businesses often lies with activities in developing cultures where traditionally the society
defines women through roles connected with family and household responsibilities. Such societal
values implicitly perceive women’s entrepreneurship as not desirable and, thus, provide lower
normative support on the governmental levels (Baughn et al., 2006; Langowitz & Minniti, 2007).
As a result, moving in the direction of sustainability becomes difficult for the entrepreneurs, as local
culture hampers their performance. It is essential for the governments to provide regional support so
that social entrepreneurs can accomplish their honourable mission to come up with solutions for
better societal challenges.
Last but not least, this research enables females, who either already are or are going to
become entrepreneurs, to better understand the peculiarities of small business operation in their
countries and use some valuable insights.

5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further research

Although the research was carefully prepared and conducted, there are also certain
limitations of this study. These limitations resulted in some suggestions for future research.
One of the most important limitations is the age of the respondents. Because the selection of
participants in Russia was based on the snowball sampling technique, it happened that females who
agreed to take part in the interviews were within the same age range. Although it provided
comparability with the Dutch participants who eventually appeared to be within the same age range,
it does not make the results generalizable for the whole population. Therefore, there is a proposition
to study a more varied group that would include females aged older than 35.
Along with modifying the sampling framework, in order to validate the findings of this
Thesis, it is recommended to start by replicating the same methodology of this study. The
replication within the same settings such as the small business sector in Russia and the Netherlands
is required. An important note is that it accidentally turned out that 5 out of 8 participants from the
Netherlands act on the jewellery market. What is more, only a few females from both countries had

57
innovative types of products or services. Therefore, having a more diverse group of businesses with
a more innovative character may produce some new insights.
Secondly, an inductive approach with semi-structured interviews was used in this Thesis.
One the one hand, choosing a qualitative study is justified by the study objectives (Baxter & Jack,
2008). A qualitative research enabled to gain in-depth reliable information, even though was
processed through a subjective perception of the reality by each interviewee. In spite of this fact,
adding some quantitative aspects could complement the study. The same research technique as was
used by Iakovleva et al (2011) with the help of questionnaires and Structural Equation Modelling
(SEM) can be applied as a quantitative method of analysis. This will allow understanding to what
extent different factors influence entrepreneurs and testing the relationships between these
variables. Moreover, in order to improve the generalizability and conduct quantitative analysis, an
extension of the sample is necessary.
The quantitative method of analysis can also be efficient to see the extent to which
Entrepreneurial Parents act as Role Models within a larger sample of respondents. It also would be
interesting to detect the relationship between Capability Perceptions that include Self-Confidence
and Fear of Failure and Entrepreneurial Parents acting as Role Models.

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 6. Conclusion

The aim of this qualitative interview study was to get a closer look at the peculiarities of
Russian and Dutch females acting in small business settings. The research question that had to be
answered in order to gain this understanding was:
What are the peculiarities of female entrepreneurship in the small business segment of Russia and
the Netherlands?

Two sub-questions were posed to answer this question:

1. Which peculiarities of female entrepreneurship favour or threaten the start-up initiative and its
further success?

2. How are these peculiarities different in Russia and the Netherlands?

The inductive approach helped answer them. The findings suggest that a combination of
internal and external motivational factors influence females in their decision to become
entrepreneurs and further success of such initiative. It is also demonstrated that a variety of factors
which shape individual’s motivation to start up, in most cases cannot be reduced to one critical
variable. On the one side of the coin, the initiative to start up and operate a business mainly results
from such "pull" factors as the need to express creativity, desire to be one's own boss and thus make
one's own choices, response to underexploited business opportunities and commitment to the
society (in case of social entrepreneurs). On the other side of the coin, some females were found to
be pushed by negative circumstances such as lack of job possibilities, undesirable working
conditions and overall insatisfaction with the chosen career path. What is more, the self-perception
of females’ abilities was found to be significantly affected by the wider social, economic and
institutional settings.
The findings of World Bank (2016) show that the index of easiness of doing business 3 in
2016 in the Netherlands is almost two times lower than in Russia, scoring 28 and 51 respectively.
Despite the fact that the business environment in Russia differs considerably from the one in the
Netherlands, the factors that affect women's decision to get involved in entrepreneurship and favour
the success of such initiative were shown to be the similar. Though there are some peculiarities of
local market conditions, economic situation in the state, culture perceptions of society and

3The economies are ranked from 1 to 181 and the first place is the best. A high ranking means that the regulatory
climate is conductive to the business operation.

59
background data of the respondents, the challenges that hinder companies’ prosperity are identified
to be similar.
Even though Russia’s business climate was found by Zhuplev & Shein (2008) to be
historically less favourable in comparison to the developed economies, the findings show that the
participants of both countries indicated lack of Entrepreneurial and Educational Institutions that
promote entrepreneurship. Government Institutions should build better ecosystems that would
support female entrepreneurship and SMEs by providing more affordable lending processes,
implementing government grants and inspiring women by success stories of role models.
Despite the fact that this study could not establish a statistical relationship of cause-effect
between different drivers and challenges that influence women's behaviour, it suggested some
relationships based on the interview transcripts. In general, half of the females agreed that they
struggle to correctly position themselves "in this male entrepreneurial world". Other females
indicated that being a woman benefits their business a lot as they are able to communicate with their
main target audience easier, which was found to be mainly composed of the same gender. The
important contribution is that nowadays business is still considered to be principally "male
territory" not mostly in countries with transition economies as was proposed by Welter et al. (2007),
but also in mature economies like the one of the Netherlands.

60
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 Appendix 1: Complete overview of Russian respondents

Russia
Personal profile Company's profile

Additional Working Business Main

Interview First high Education Current Type of Entrepreneurial Marital
Age (professional) experience* Children Type ownership target
№ education degree job** entrpeneur parents status
education (years) (years)*** audience

international fitness non-

1 25 master 4,5 no novice yes no fitness 1 diverse
economics coaching formal

imageology,
applied fashion &
2 27 fashion styling master 8 no portfolio yes married no 2 women
linguistics style
& photography

mehendi
non- mehendi
3 30 teaching designing, master 7 no novice no no 2,5 women
formal design
interior design

wedding
international design,
4 27 no master 6 yes novice yes no no 2 women
affairs flowers
arrangement

industrial non-
5 25 no master 0 no novice no no nail studio 1 women
design formal

6 28 ballet journalism master 12 no serial yes married no nail studio 1 women

international
7 26 no master 2 yes novice yes no no diaries 1 women
finance

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 Appendix 2: Complete overview of Dutch respondents

The Netherlands
Additional Working Current Business Main
Interview First high Education Type of Entrepreneurial Marital
Age (professional) experience* job Children Type ownership target
№ education degree entrpeneur parents status
education (years) status** (years)*** audience

African non-
8 30 no bachelor 0 No novice no no jewelry 1,5 women
linguistics formal

bio-
9 32 no master 4 yes novice no married yes jewelry 2,5 women
chemistry

international non- jewelry, social

10 29 no bachelor 1 No novice no no 2 women
business formal entrepreneurship

law & jewelry, social

11 35 no master 8 No novice no married yes 0,7 women
economics entreprenurship

international
business
12 35 management no master 9 No novice yes married no tea 2 diverse
&
development
social
non- icecream, social
13 28 law entrepreneurship master 2 No novice no no 0,5 diverse
formal entrepreneurship
& gelato
no (dropped
picture sharing
bachelor at non-
14 29 no no 10 No serial yes yes mobile 1,5 diverse
the 2nd year formal
application
of studies)
no degree
yet non-
15 24 psychology no 0 No novice yes no jewelry 1 women
(bachelor formal
in VU)

67
 Appendix 3: Interview Guideline (the Netherlands)

 thank participant for attending;

 explain the aim of the research;
 emphasize assurance of anonymity and confidentiality;
 provide an indication of the likely amount of time the interview will take;
 ask for permission to record the interview using mobile phone;
 indicate that the audio recording will be transcripted into a Word document.

1. Tell me please about your background?

2. Tell me the hystory of your start up?

3. Why did you decide to start up?

4. Which challenges did you face?

5. How did you finance your start up?

6. Did economic situation on the market influence decision to start business?

7. Do you think that if you were a man, the same difficulties would also arise?

8. (Do you think it would be easier to cope with them then?)

9. Do you think that femininity plays a role in your acting as an entrepreneur?

10. Did you have male partner when you decided to start up?

11. (Did he help you?)

12. (Do you think that without his support you would not start business?)

13. How do you make decisions? Do you have your own business strategy?

68
14. What is your main target audience?

15. How did you find first/new customers, potential partners, sponsors, investors?

16. Where do you find inspiration and energy to move forwards?

 thank participant for her time and inquire if she has additional comments;
 ask for the possibility to keep in contact if needed to clarify answers because of interferences
in audio recording;
 ask if participant could refer to other participants that suit the objectives of the research;
 transcribe the recordings as soon as possible.

Appendix 4: Interview Guideline (Russia)

 thank the participant for attending;

 explain the aim of the research;
 emphasize assurance of anonymity and confidentiality;
 provide an indication of the likely amount of time the interview will take;
 ask for permission to record the interview using mobile phone;
 indicate that the audio recording will be transcripted into a Word Document.

1. Расскажи, пожалуйста, немного о себе?

2. Расскажи историю возникновения бизнеса?

3. Pасскажи почему ты решила завести свой бизнес?

4. С какими трудностями ты столкнулась?

5. Где ты нашла необходимые финансовые ресурсы?

6. Оказала ли экономическая ситуация в стране какое-то влияние на твое решение

открыть бизнес?

69
7. Как ты считаешь, если бы ты была мужчиной, у тебя возникли бы те же
труднocти?

8. (Было бы тогда легче их преодолеть?)

9. Считаешь ли ты что женственность играет роль в твоем бизнесе?

10. Был ли у тебя мужчина во время открытия бизнеса?

11. (Оказывал ли он помощь?)

12. (Считаешь ли ты что без его поддержки все равно открыла бы бизнес?)

13. Как ты принимаешь решения? Есть ли у тебя бизнес-стратегия развития

собственного бизнеса?

14. Какая у тебя основная целевая аудитория?

15. Как ты вышла на первых/новых клиентов, потенциальных партнеров

спонсоров или инвесторов?

16. Где ты черпаешь вдохновение и силы чтобы двигаться вперед?

 thank participant for her time and inquire if she has additional comments;
 ask for the possibility to keep in contact if needed to clarify answers because of interferences
in audio recording;
 ask if participant could refer to other participants that suit the objectives of the research;
 word process the notes as soon as possible.

70