Information and Software Technology 155 (2023) 107110

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Information and Software Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/infsof

Becoming an entrepreneur: A study of factors with women from the

tech sector
Yekaterina Kovaleva , Sonja Hyrynsalmi , Andrey Saltan , Ari Happonen , Jussi Kasurinen *
LUT University, School of Engineering Science, Yliopistonkatu 34, 53850 Lappeenranta, Finland

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Context: The gender imbalance in technology, sciences, and engineering is a global problem and according to the
Women in tech statistics, this really has not changed much in the last thirty years. Moreover, there is also a lack of women in tech
Entrepreneurship entrepreneurship; most success stories are about male entrepreneurs, and in Silicon Valley the term describing
Affecting factors
the start-up culture is called “tech bros” for a reason.
Equality
Gender bias
Objective: This paper identifies different factors affecting the women’s decision to select a tech sector and become
an entrepreneur in the tech sector. In this paper we also aim to identify different pitfalls and problems, which
could influence the attractiveness of the tech sector, and specifically technology entrepreneurship, towards the
women interested in the science, technology, and engineering domains.
Method: To study the factors affecting women’s interest towards entrepreneurship in the technology sector, we
conducted a series of surveys and interviews to understand the underlying phenomena. Overall, this study
interviewed ten female company founders, and conducted two surveys with women working, interested, or
studying towards the tech sector, allowing us to combine and compare the qualitative data from the women who
had become entrepreneurs against the quantitative trends and ideas collected from the general audiences.
Results: The most common factors limiting the individuals’ interest towards entrepreneurship such as financial
risks or high responsibilities might not be gender-related, but there are also aspects as social acceptance,
discrimination, and lack of role models, which affect especially the women interested in the possibilities of
becoming an entrepreneur in tech.
Conclusions: In general, the current younger generations are aware of the option of becoming entrepreneurs, and
what becoming one requires. Initiatives, such as adding positive examples of females’ success, or supporting
entry-level opportunities towards full-time entrepreneurship, could have a meaningful impact of reducing the
gender imbalance in the STEM fields, and in technology entrepreneurship in general.

1. Introduction lack of females selecting science, technology, engineering, and mathe­

Gender equality is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals
adopted by the United Nations[50] . Developed countries are acting to
bring equal opportunities to all citizens [11]. However, even if the in­
dividual has an opportunity to choose any field of study or apply for any
position, this does not mean that they will utilize this possibility [3].
Even though there have been significant changes in the labor market in
the last decades, there are still some sectors that have not achieved
gender equality. The problem of gender inequality in STEM remains
global. Thus, for instance, in the United States, only 12% of architectural
and engineering managers are women, compared to 78% of human re­
sources managers [7,11]. There are also similar observations from the
matics (STEM) disciplines[21] as higher education majors. It is worth
noting that not all STEM fields lack women, but there is truly a signifi­
cant gender gap in mathematics, physics, and computer science [6].
Moreover, there is evidence [27] on the trend that women do not choose
entrepreneurship as their career path as commonly as men do, and that
entrepreneurship in general is considered a masculine[6] career path.
Researchers tend to link these phenomena with social pressure caused
by gender stereotypes and cultural specifics [5–9]. By stereotype we
mean widely spread and fixed belief about particular group of people,
things and phenomena [1]. One of the gender stereotype examples is a
belief that men perform better in math than women. This belief has been
tested and refuted repeatedly, but still exists in society [3].

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jussi.kasurinen@lut.fi (J. Kasurinen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2022.107110
Received 28 April 2022; Received in revised form 19 August 2022; Accepted 15 November 2022
Available online 24 November 2022
0950-5849/© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Y. Kovaleva et al.
Historically, specially before the mid 20th century, women spent
most of their time on household chores. However, the emergence of a
central water supply, heating, and home appliances significantly
reduced the time required to maintain the household [23]. Now, in
many countries, women can now work and hold positions in most fields
equally to men. Therefore, women often make financial decisions in the
family and are the final consumers of products and services [49]. Hence,
the following questions arise: How can technology companies produce
gender-inclusive products and services if there is an imbalance in their
workforce, and how can these companies achieve a gender balance? In
this article, we studied and identified the factors and topics of interest
that affect the decision for women to select STEM fields, specifically
engineering, as their profession and their motivation to become entre­
preneurs in the context of Finland and the Finnish higher education
system. We also studied the barriers women have and the skills they
perceive as important for a career as an entrepreneur, with the objective
of defining a set of areas for improvement to understand the barriers and
enhance inclusiveness in engineering education and entrepreneurship.
Overall, our objective was to identify and understand what factors in­
fluence the decision for women to select the tech sector as their profession,
and, further, what factors influence the women of the tech sector on their
decision to become entrepreneurs. In this paper we also aim to identify the
barriers, which could influence the attractiveness of the tech sector, and
specifically technology entrepreneurship for women.
In this paper, we extend the results originally published as a con­
ference proceedings paper[51] by providing further details on the
analysis of the interviews with the expert groups and discussing their
implications for the overall identified factors affecting women’s entre­
preneurship in the technology sector. Overall, our research group con­
ducted four data collection rounds consisting of two surveys, and two
rounds of interviews with the domain experts. The two data collection
surveys were conducted among individuals interested in changing their
careers to computer science and among students already studying
computer science, software engineering, or other STEM fields. To sup­
plement the surveys with qualitative data, we conducted two rounds of
interviews with female entrepreneurs to discuss female entrepreneur­
ship from their experiences. In total, we collected 104 survey sub­
missions and conducted 16 interviews describing the barriers to and
areas of interest in the technology sector and entrepreneurship. The
collected submission represented different age groups, career stages,
and a varied number of people already working as entrepreneurs, or
potentially being interested in becoming one in the future.
Based on the results, it is apparent that there are trends, such as the
ability to innovate or solve humanity’s problems with a scientific
approach, that seem to be general areas of interest for women in the tech
sector in Finland. There also seem to be gender-based barriers, such as a
lack of role models and the pressure of stereotypes for women to become
entrepreneurs, even in Finland, a country that for the last fourteen years
has ranked to the World Top-5 countries on the European Institute for
Gender Equality’s gender equality index [4]; only one-third of the re­
spondents considered that there are no meaningful differences between
men and women becoming entrepreneurs. From the in-depth interviews,
further observations were also made on the feasibility or likelihood of
becoming an entrepreneur and the driving factors behind this decision.
Some of these were universal, such as the inability to take the financial
risks associated with switching away from a salaried job, but some
affecting women, such as a lack of relatable role models, were also
identified.
2. Related works and motivation
To understand the underrepresentation of women in Tech, specif­
ically in entrepreneurship and study the situation in Finland, we firstly
analyzed literature covering this topic. We decided not to limit our
literature study by Finnish cultural context but collect findings from
broader perspectives and test them during surveys and interview rounds.
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Information and Software Technology 155 (2023) 107110
Gender gaps exist in both traditionally male-dominant and female-
dominant fields. Ninety-four percent of US childcare workers are
women, whereas they present only eight percent of construction man­
agers. Even though working in a human-centric occupation, which is
considered to be a female-dominant area, proved to be beneficial for
both men and women [36,48], these occupations were historically
presented as less prestigious [12]. For this reason, men involved in these
areas often experience social disapproval [13]. Women face an access
barrier to men-dominated areas and experience biased attitudes toward
women in STEM. This means that women are disadvantaged in taking
better-paid and socially respected positions [12]. This situation gener­
ates a shortage of out-of-the-box role models and therefore reinforces
gender stereotypes, while studies have shown that companies with
balanced management staff show better productivity and achieve better
results in innovation development [17]. A study by Gilal et al. [20] in
Software Engineering has shown that both men and women can be
effective leaders if they have the right personal traits. Therefore, in a
world where technology is involved in every aspect of our lives, and the
end users are both men and women, it is vital to achieve a balance at the
origins of these technologies. As a successful product needs to share the
utilitarian, hedonic, and social values of the customer, the product de­
signers and managers running the development should also include
people from the different genders and backgrounds, to understand the
different customers’ viewpoints [25].
2.1. Women in STEM
The underrepresentation of women in STEM fields is a well-known
phenomenon. In fact, a study by Griffith [21] observe that the gender
differences in engagement of the STEM fields is not only a global
problem, but a problem that persists from one decade to another: the
underrepresentation has not changed much between the 1980′ s and the
turn of the century, with the gender gap growing wider the higher the
level of education was observed. A study by Wang & Decol [46] proposes
an expectancy value perspective model to explain the problems with the
attractiveness of the STEM fields. This theory considers two categories of
factors that affect the decision-making process. First, there are expec­
tations for success in a task an individual chooses; second, there is value
that this task brings to the person (interest, usefulness, etc.) [22]. In
countries with high overall equality, students can choose their education
based on their own interests and steer their careers toward topics they
consider most suitable for them. In this sense, several other factors, such
as lifestyle values, social expectations, and the perception of one’s own
abilities, play a role in the selection of future career paths.
Starting from early childhood, individuals experience biased atti­
tudes from parents, educators, the media, and society in general. One of
the most common examples of bias could be that parents choose gender-
typed toys for their children [30]. These toys may stimulate different
skill development among boys and girls and, as a result, affect their
future behavior [22]. Thus, for instance, playing building blocks de­
velops spatial reasoning skills, which are crucial for engineering [24]. In
schools and basic education, some teachers and parents believe that
boys have higher mathematics potential [3,44,], even though studies
have shown that there is no gender difference in math abilities [22].
Boys and girls have different hobbies, where girls are encouraged to
engage in arts [32]. While on the selection process toward engineering, a
study by Powell et al. [41] identified prior research and discussed their
own observations on factors leading to students selecting an engineering
discipline as their profession. One of the most influential factors iden­
tified was technology-oriented childhood hobbies; students who were
doing something “hands-on” with technology were likelier to select
engineering as their future career. Similarly, the effect of encourage­
ment from the schoolteachers toward pursuing a career in technology
and engineering was considered a major influence. Some studies
consider parents’ recommendations to be one of the most influential
factors in career decision making, especially among girls [1,5,19]. There
Y. Kovaleva et al.
is also an observation that parents’ careers have a great influence on
children’s career preferences [39].
Overall, society dictates what behavior is appropriate for boys and
girls [13,14,36,37]. Moreover, children build their beliefs about the
world based on the media picture and close environment, which still
lack role models [29,43,48]. As a result, these factors raise female’s
self-doubts in their abilities in science and engineering [22]. According
to the expectancy value theory mentioned above, they have low ex­
pectations of their success in STEM and therefore choose other
occupations.
It is worth noting that there are other possible explanations for
gender gaps in Western countries. Wang and Decol [46] study points out
that nations with high overall gender equality and social systems that
provide personal economic security enable people to pursue careers that
cater more to their personal interests, not only those that offer them
better financial income. The study of Mastekaasa and Smeby has shown
that students who made traditional choices more often had an interest in
their educational program from early childhood [34]. However, it is
important to remember that equality does not mean gender neutrality
[37]. Even though there are equal opportunities provided to both men
and women, this does not mean that it is equally easy to take these
opportunities considering social acceptance, personal beliefs, etc.
2.2. Women entrepreneurs
Besides selecting a career path in engineering, science, or technol­
ogy, we studied the selection of entrepreneurial careers among women.
Like engineering, entrepreneurship is also considered a generally
masculine career choice, according to a study by Stoet and Geary, which
was conducted roughly 10 years ago [37,52]. Covering more than 400,
000 student records, they discovered that women were underrepre­
sented in the science and technology sector, even from the initial
number of applicants, and this phenomenon gets only worse if we
consider startup companies and the general willingness to become en­
trepreneurs. This phenomenon is also observed by Poggesi et al. [40],
adding that for the STEM fields specifically, academic women are not
very keen to pursue a career of entrepreneurship in general, and
non-academic women tend to adopt the viewpoints of masculine culture
to “fit in.”
A study conducted in Canada by Cukier and Chavoushi [11] focused
on the women from STEM fields and their general attitudes toward
entrepreneurship. In this study, they found that the underrepresentation
is not only a problem of the degree programs at universities, but it is also
a larger issue of society: business incubators, accelerators, and venture
investors also seem to avoid women entrepreneurs, providing fewer
opportunities for success. In their study, the startup culture is considered
“bro culture of alpha males,” furthering the problem of women not
becoming entrepreneurs, or having to adopt the masculine viewpoints
and culture mentioned by Poggesi et al. [40]. During observations of
pitches performed by female- and male-led company leaders, Kanze
et al. [26] noticed that 67% of the questions posed to male entrepreneurs
were promotion oriented, while 66% of those posed to female entre­
preneurs were prevention oriented. This means that while men were
asked about their business development, women were asked about their
strategies to prevent failure. As a result, presentations made different
impressions and directed investments in favor of male-led companies.
Besides social factors, there are also some personal factors affecting
the lack of female entrepreneurs. Traditionally, women are family
caretakers, which may influence their willingness to work overtime and
take business trips [31]. Studies also emphasize that women, by nature,
are not risk-takers, which is a crucial characteristic of entrepreneurs
[33]. We found mention of female perfectionism as a factor in female
self-doubts. In a study by Ferraz and Gama [16] an interviewee says: “In
our culture, women are afraid of making mistakes, because they have to
be perfect.” A study by Cho et al. [9] states that women are most likely to
become entrepreneurs by the effect of pushing factors, such as family
3
Information and Software Technology 155 (2023) 107110
needs or hitting the career “glass-ceiling.” Perhaps, therefore, research
shows that the average age of female entrepreneurs is more than 45
years, followed closely by the group over 36 [35]. In comparison with
male entrepreneurs, more female entrepreneurs have higher education
and experience in the business field [9,15,]. However, even with the
necessary knowledge, women tend to choose the “women’s” sphere for
business, such as in the beauty and fashion industries [42].
Based on these observations, we have created Fig. 1, which sum­
marizes the factors influencing females’ intention to become entrepre­
neurs and the consequences of these factors. This model has become a
baseline for our research. We used it to understand if the situation in
Finland corresponds to these findings, and as a basis for our tested
hypothesis.
3. Research method
As a starting point for our research, we have observed the literature
on female entrepreneurs and women in technology. Our research plan
was based on the findings mentioned in the previous chapter and illus­
trated with their related concepts in Fig. 1. We have found explanations
for why the gender gap in technological entrepreneurship exists in
different contexts and cultures and have decided to investigate whether
these explanations are relevant to the situation in Finland. To study
women’s entrepreneurship in the technology sector and the factors
affecting their interests and views toward entrepreneurship, we orga­
nized a set of data collection rounds to study the phenomena in detail.
The data collection consisted of the four steps described in Table 1. First,
we conducted an online survey to discuss and identify general ideas and
areas of interest of women regarding tech entrepreneurship. Second, we
utilized the survey results along with the literature findings to prepare
and conduct in-depth interviews with female entrepreneurs. Third, to
expand the understanding of observed phenomena, we designed and
conducted a second survey with students to determine their perceptions
of entrepreneurial careers. At this point, we had a response from those
who were at the starting point of the career path (students), those who
considered career changes (working women), and those who had
already launched their business (female entrepreneurs). Finally, during
the fourth step, we conducted a second round of interviews with female
entrepreneurs to discuss and validate the summarized findings of all
previous steps. Thus, we collected data from audiences with different
experiences and expertise, which allowed us to consider female tech
entrepreneurship from different perspectives. In this chapter, we will
discuss each step in more detail.
3.1. Online surveys
During our study, we conducted two quantitative online surveys that
were organized according to the general guidelines on structuring the
data collection instruments described by Fink [18]. For example, rec­
ommendations on the principles of question design, tonality, and ob­
jectives were followed to manage and minimize the amount of internal
bias. The goal of both questionnaires was to collect feelings, consider­
ations, and ideas from our target audience. In the first round, the focus
was on the areas of interest in technology and entrepreneurship,
whereas in the second round, the focus was on the obstacles, hindrances,
and topics identified in the first survey and interviews. In general, we
wanted to keep our data collection tools and the questions exploratory
[28] in nature to dig deeper into the phenomena in the interview rounds.
3.2. Qualitative interviews
Interviews with the participants were conducted in two stages.
During two interviews rounds we have conducted 16 interviews, 10
during the first one, 6 during the second. For the first interview round,
questions were designed based on the literature and the first survey
results and aimed to gain an understanding of the motivation, problems,
Y. Kovaleva et al. Information and Software Technology 155 (2023) 107110

Fig. 1. Factors affecting women’s entrepreneurship identified from the literature review.

Table 1
Data collection rounds related to this study.
Data collection Description
round
1; 1st survey First survey data collected from a general
population participating in a trade fair on
computer science and information
technology. The fair participants were
women interested in switching their careers
to computer science and information
technology.
2; 1st interview First interview round with female company
round founders, discussing the different aspects of
women entrepreneurship in technology.
3; 2nd survey Second online survey with young women
getting education in the technology sector, or
already working in the technology sector.
4; 2nd Follow-up interviews with female
interview entrepreneurs, validating the research
round results.
and opportunities of female entrepreneurs in Finland. The second round
of interviews was conducted after analyzing the results of all previous
steps and was aimed at validating the summarized findings of our study.
For the validation purposes we have asked 4 interviewees from the
previous round to participate in the second round. Also, we discussed
our findings with 2 company founders who were not participating in
previous steps to get “fresh” view on the situation. The detailed infor­
mation about 12 interview participants is presented in Table 2. Due to
Covid-19, our access to the interviewees was restricted. We needed to
Number of organize the interview sessions over online connections, making the
participants
videorecording of the meetings that simplified subsequent interview
55 analysis.
To study human interaction and consider social issues, it is generally
accepted to use qualitative research. One approach is grounded theory.
By its inductive nature, the theory is based on collected data [47]. The
study is flexible before and during its implementation, meaning that
data are collected and analyzed simultaneously [7]. Qualitative in­
10
terviews were analyzed using the open and axial coding principle, which
is a typical approach for Straussian grounded theory [10]. Coding was
49 based on microanalysis, which is a line-by-line study of materials that
allows us to determine the main categories and their relationships.
During microanalysis, the researcher tried to look at each piece of in­
6
formation and focus on each word separately, trying to consider the
interviewees’ interpretations. Then, the researcher divided the data into
parts, looking for their similarities. Common items are combined into
categories, assigning labels for each important piece of data. In the
subsequent analysis, the core category, which explains the main theory,
and all other categories belonging to the core category are selected [47].
Overall, the interviews provided about ten hours of recordings, and
33 observed factors in seven categories. The survey and interview results
are presented in the following section.

4
Y. Kovaleva et al. Information and Software Technology 155 (2023) 107110

Table 2
Interviewees.
Company type Country of origin Education level Background 1st round 2nd round

W1 Tech Mexico PhD • Management experience Yes Yes

• Family of entrepreneurs
W2 Non-tech Finland Master • Marketing experience Yes No
W3 Tech Sweden Master • Management experience Yes Yes
• Rich field experience
• Family of entrepreneurs
W4 Tech Finland Bachelor • Prior business experience Yes Yes
• Family of entrepreneurs
W5 Tech Canada Bachelor • Management experience Yes No
W6 Tech Finland Master • Rich field experience Yes No
• Family of entrepreneurs
W7 Tech Greece PhD • Sales experience Yes Yes
• Family of entrepreneurs
W8 Tech Sweden Master • Rich field experience Yes No
• Family of entrepreneurs
W9 Tech Spain Master • Rich field experience Yes No
• Family of entrepreneurs
W10 Non-tech Finland Master • Rich field experience Yes No
W11 Tech Finland Bachelor • Rich field experience No Yes
• Family of entrepreneurs
W12 Tech Finland PhD • Management experience No Yes
• Rich field experience

4. Results

In this section, we discuss the observations from four data collection

steps in chronological order: first survey with the general public, first
round of interviews with female entrepreneurs, second survey with fe­
male students, and confirmative second round of interviews.

4.1. Results from the 1st survey

The initial survey was conducted in public, consisting of women of

Fig. 2. “Do you think that for women it is more difficult to take an entrepre­
all ages participating in a trade fair organized in February 2020, aiming neurial path?” answers in percentages (N = 55).
to attract women to the information technology sector. The survey was
also distributed via social networks and interest groups for women in the
considering social factors to be the most influential. Regarding age dif­
technology sector. We obtained several male responses to the first sur­
ferences, the younger respondent groups emphasized the attitudes to­
vey. However, the number of male participants was statistically insig­
ward women (71.4% from 18 to 35), with 36+ emphasizing “other
nificant for comparison, so their responses were removed from the
reasons,” such as “lack of networks and connections,” “older women are
subsequent analysis. Overall, we obtained 55 responses, with 56%
not respected,” and “lower risk tolerance,” being named separately in
coming from women from the age group of 36 or older, 38% from 25- to
the open-text field. With the “No” option, there are no clear differences
35-year-olds, and 6% from 18 to 24. As found in the literature, most
between age groups.
women start their entrepreneurial careers after the age of 36. To
The last question on entrepreneurship concerned the expected
compare this age group with the younger one, we combined the groups
characteristics required to become an entrepreneur. As illustrated in
18–24 and 25–35 into one. We summarized this data in Table 3.
Fig. 3, the most common characteristics were risk tolerance (62%) and
The first question aimed to understand the relation of the audience to
insider knowledge (58%). Overall, “soft” skills were very much
entrepreneurship. Overall, 22% (12) of the respondents were entrepre­
emphasized in the answers; “hard” skills, such as technical knowledge or
neurs, and more precisely 18% (10) were entrepreneurs in the tech­
practical experience, both received less than 10% of votes. Comparing
nology sector. Forty percent (22) of the respondents had an interest in
age groups against each other, the ages 18–35 promoted leadership
becoming an entrepreneur in the future, and the remaining 20% (11) of
more than the 36+ group, while the 36+ group favored financial
the respondents did not have an interest in being entrepreneurs, at least
right now. Also, the responses also reflected the age groups in some
occasions: for example eight out of the ten technology entrepreneurs
were women in the 36+ group.
The second question was about the difficulty of becoming an entre­
preneur (Fig. 2). Most of the responses (67.3%) identified that they feel
that it is more difficult for women to become entrepreneurs than men,

Table 3
1st survey participants’ description.
N Age groups Entrepreneurship
18–24 25–35 36+ Yes Interested Not
interested

1st 55 3 21 31 12 22 11
Fig. 3. Characteristics expected to be required for entrepreneurs (pick max 3,
Survey
no order, N = 55).

5
Y. Kovaleva et al. Information and Software Technology 155 (2023) 107110

knowledge more than the 18–35. Entrepreneurs during the interviews Table 5
mentioned the importance of the intention to learn all the time. Categorized observations and discussed items from the interviews.
The final question identified the most interesting technological Codes Main Category
areas. The respondents were asked to name the three most interesting
• Innovation High values
technologies or areas of interest they found appealing in the order of • Intention to make the world a better place
their personal preference. For the analysis, these submissions were • Social impact
abstracted and grouped into a smaller total number of combined cate­ • Building a team
gories to assess the topics that interested participants in the technology • Making changes
Impact thinking
sector. The three most interesting areas were future and new innovative
•
• Feeling the need Business idea
technologies, specific technology, and educational technology and • Dream
research. Considering only first-priority answers, “Technology that • Constant search for ideas
helps people or solved real-world problems” was also considered one of • Idea
Inability to influence something Leadership potential
the areas of high interest. The full list of identified areas of interest is •
• Lack of freedom
available in Table 4. • Need of bigger challenges
• Intention to build a legacy
4.2. First interview round observations • Self-affirmation
• Decision-making
• Network Solid background
To gain a better understanding of the state-of-the-art in Finland, we • The natural course of things
used the literature findings and first survey results to design the first • Higher (master+) education
interview questions. During the first interview round, 10 in-depth in­ • Management experience
terviews with female entrepreneurs were conducted. The population • Rich field experience
Family support
criteria were that the interviewed person was the founder or one of the
•
• Male assertiveness Networking problems
founders of a company that operated in Finland. All the interviews were • Difficulties in getting support
collected by the same interviewer with the intent of keeping the context • Disrespect
between the interviews as equal in nature as possible and ensuring that • Biased attitude
Customer bias
all interviewees understood the questions in a similar manner. During •
• Stereotypes
the first interview, the themes were based on literature observations and • Quotas Quotas
focused on topics such as personal values and motivation, personal • Media interest
background, business experience, and known gender-specific problems. • Perfectionism Perfectionism
Most interviewees came from the countries other than Finland. • Pressure of expectations
Imposed self-doubt
Nevertheless, we found that the experiences they had were similar and
•

did not differ from their cultural backgrounds. Moreover, most of the
entrepreneurs (8 out of 10) had a master’s degree or higher education; world a better place, to gain freedom of action, or to have a good
all of them had prior working experience. An interesting finding is that business idea as their motivation to launch a business. Only one
eight out of ten interviewees came from the family of entrepreneurs, interviewee became an entrepreneur because she could not find a
which could also be the factor affecting their career decisions. During job.
the interviews, we discussed the specifics of being a female entrepre­ 2 Success stories do matter. All interviewees agreed that there is a
neur. During the analysis, we came up with a categorized codification of lack of women success stories, or that almost all well-known success
all the observed problems and concepts mentioned by the interviewees. stories are from male-driven startups.
These categorizations are presented in Table 5. After going through 3 Support from the environment is more important than indi­
confirmational second interview round, these categories were utilized in cated. All interviewees had received some form of support from their
casual-and-effect scheme presented in Section 4.1. environment, government, social connections, or family. Family
On topics related to entrepreneurship, we came up with several ob­ support was emphasized as a critical success factor, along with
servations, which either explain or confirm our observations from the support programs and funding opportunities for business startups. As
literature and survey, or provide further insight to the study: mentioned before, eight out of ten respondents came from entre­
preneurial families. This corresponds to the finding that children
1 Internal motivation to become an entrepreneur. Among the often choose their parents’ career path.
reasons for choosing an entrepreneurial career, the most pronounced 4 Female entrepreneurs face gender barriers in Finland. We
were not "pushing" factors (mentioned in the literature) but personal identified two groups of gender-specific barriers: internal and
interests. Women have repeatedly mentioned the desire to make the external. Internal barriers include family caretaking as a factor to
consider the risks more deeply. Interviewees also claimed that
Table 4 women have perfectionism that creates self-doubts and prevents
Codified areas of interest in technology identified by respondents (total 129 them from starting businesses. “Women tend to research more before
codes; individual codes might be classified into more than one category). making a decision…reduced perfectionism would allow them to
Areas of interest in 1st 2nd 3rd Total move faster… which is a challenge for startups… when you go to the
technology priority priority priority market ‘something good’ is better than perfect…ROI is less and less
Future/innovation 10 7 5 22 the more perfect the product is”. Externally, interviewees have
Specific tech/domain 9 7 5 21 experienced biased attitudes, disrespect, and difficulties in getting
Education/pedagogy/ 7 4 5 16 investments.
research
5 There are benefits to being a female entrepreneur. Among the
Help people/Solve problems 9 3 2 14
Creativity 7 3 4 14 disadvantages, interviewees named problems with getting in­
Programming work /SE 5 5 3 13 vestments, especially in slowly changing male-dominant industries.
Games/UX 3 3 3 9 There were also cases when women faced biased attitudes from
Machine learning/AI 5 0 1 6 business partners and clients. However, there are great advantages to
Equal/Fairness 3 2 1 6
Sustainability 2 2 1 5
being a female entrepreneur in tech, especially nowadays. Females

6
Y. Kovaleva et al.
are visible and remembered, which has a positive effect on
networking. There is a growing interest in supporting female entre­
preneurs, so there are different quotas that women can get. More­
over, the media is now seeking female success stories that can give
additional promotion for their startups.
6 Experience with formal education. Even though all of the in­
terviewees had higher education, they denied its importance for
entrepreneurship. However, this could be reflected in the fact that
practical entrepreneurial activities do not require theoretical
knowledge from the university, but there may be other cases when
they need it, for example, for networking purposes. Entrepreneurs
emphasized the importance of having knowledge in the field startup
is entering and at list introductory business knowledge that would be
strengthened with continuous learning. There are, of course, some
cases where entering the field requires a license; therefore, there are
special requirements for these business founders.
4.3. Results of the second survey
The second survey was conducted fully online, and it collected re­
sponses from 49 women studying toward a degree in technology or
science or already working in the tech industry. This survey was con­
ducted to investigate the career expectations of the students and their
thoughts about entrepreneurship to obtain a broader perspective on the
topic. Of the respondents, 61.2% had a degree or were studying for a
degree in information technology-related fields, 12.2% in other science
or engineering disciplines, and 26.5% were from other areas.
In the second survey, we focused on the aspects of becoming an
entrepreneur. As can be seen from Fig. 4A and B, the respondents’
opinions divided almost equally between those who are considering
building their own business and those who are not interested in it, with
only 4% of respondents certain that they would like to have an entre­
preneurial career. Then, we asked participants who were interested in
entrepreneurship if they wanted to build a technology-oriented com­
pany. Interestingly, even though 73% of the respondents were graduates
or students in a STEM field, only 41% of potential entrepreneurs were
interested in entrepreneurship in the technology sector.
Based on our earlier observations on the factors stopping women
Fig. 4. A ‒ (top) Intention to be an entrepreneur, B (bottom) – if agree to A,
Intention of founding a technology-oriented startup.
7
Information and Software Technology 155 (2023) 107110
from entrepreneurship, such as fear of risks, social disapproval, and
other areas, in this survey, we studied these reasons in more detail. First,
as illustrated in Fig. 5, the majority (74%) of the respondents considered
that working as an employee would be preferred over the option of
working as an entrepreneur as a less risky workload. Interestingly, no
respondent selected “Strongly disagree” on this question, and only 12%
saw life as an entrepreneur preferable to a salaried position as an
employee.
The next question focused on environmental support that contained
family approval, social networks, connections, and, in general, attitudes
toward women entrepreneurs in the culture. Unlike the first survey,
where 32% of respondents mentioned social networks and pressure to be
a roadblock for women to become entrepreneurs, in this survey, only
14% believed that their social networks or working environments would
not support them. This could be related to the fact that almost all re­
spondents in the second survey were already involved in technologies,
meaning that they were already on a “non-traditional” pathway, and
they probably had a supportive environment to do so. As illustrated in
Fig. 6, in this item, no respondents selected “Strongly disagree.”
For a more detailed analysis of the relationship between the various
factors, statistical coefficients were also considered using Webropol
analysis tools. According to Krehbiel, the correlation coefficient shows
√̅̅̅
the presence of a relationship between two factors if |rxy | ≥ 2 / n [2].
Based on this formula, the coefficient of sufficiency for our sampling (n
= 49) would be 0.286. This means that if the correlation coefficient is
equal to or higher than 0.286, there is a correlation between the two
factors. There was a correlation (correlation coefficient equal to 0.3)
between the respondents’ responses regarding the support of the envi­
ronment and their desire to build their businesses (Fig. 3A). This in­
dicates that there is a connection between support and approval from
the social environment in building business activities or becoming a
female entrepreneur.
The second survey also included further questions regarding the
background and inequality experiences of the respondents in their
earlier lives. As illustrated in Fig. 7, there were some unequal opportu­
nities reported by women, as 37% of respondents reported that they had
been treated unfairly in the selection of educational programs because of
gender, and 20% reported that they have had at least some pressure on
their future career expectations because they are women. Almost half,
43%, reported that they were not allowed, or were pressured to select
certain hobbies because of their gender.
As a follow-up question on the observations from the first survey and
interviews, the second survey included a question regarding the
enabling factors for women to become entrepreneurs. The respondents
chose “coming from the families of entrepreneurs” as the most signifi­
cant factor increasing the likelihood of a woman choosing an entrepre­
neurial career, while the second most important factor women chose
was "rich and varying work experience." These both factors were also
Fig. 5. ‒ Risk-based work preferences.
Y. Kovaleva et al.
Fig. 6. ‒ Environmental support.
Fig. 7. ‒ Unequal treatment in different areas of life.
presented in the interviews, and were mentioned several times as
enabling factors. From the list of items identified, the least important
aspect considered was state support. In contrast, the interviewees noted
that government involvement is vital. Possibly, this means that this
factor affects practical business development more than the motivation
to become an entrepreneur. The rest of the items are shown in Fig. 8.
The last survey question focused on becoming an entrepreneur. From
the survey respondents, 73% reported that there is a lack of women role
models in the business world. As a follow-up, 60% reported that they
would be willing to consider entrepreneurship as an option if they had
women role models they could follow, or examples to have more
knowledge on how women have been successful in the technology
sector. We believe that the problem is not in the absence of successful
female entrepreneurs but in their low media representation. As one of
Fig. 8. ‒ Concepts that affect the likelihood of women becoming
entrepreneurs.
8
Information and Software Technology 155 (2023) 107110
the interviewees said, “Before becoming an entrepreneur, I could not
name any role model.” Interestingly, there was also a correlation be­
tween the women who had been allowed to choose their own hobbies,
and women who strongly agreed that the technology sector needs more
women as an example to others.
As the last item in the survey, the respondents answered whether
they considered entrepreneurial activity to be more advantageous. Many
respondents (39%) answered that business is at least somewhat attrac­
tive, but a similar group did not have a strong preference or opinion as to
whether entrepreneurship is better or worse than working for hire as an
employee. The correlation analysis also shows the relationship between
this question and the consideration of an entrepreneurial career (the
coefficient is 0.44) and the desire to work for a hire (the coefficient is
0.55). These correlations indicate that the reluctance to be an entre­
preneur is not only a gender issue as such, but the lack of resources to
withstand potential failure in a business venture, or reliance on the
guaranteed monthly income are most likely to also be important factors
beyond equality and gender.
4.4. Second interview round results
In the final step of data collection, we conducted six additional in­
terviews with female entrepreneurs. The goal of this interview round
was to summarize and confirm the findings that were collected in pre­
vious steps and to discuss additional questions that appeared during the
data analysis.
We wanted to know if the entrepreneurs, as the survey participants,
experienced gender discrimination in childhood. From the second
interview round, it was found that women experienced a specific atti­
tude based on gender while growing up. However, there were no serious
problems. During discussions about risk-taking, entrepreneurs did not
agree that women are afraid to take risks but confirmed a high degree of
self-doubt and a tendency to overthink, which is related to
perfectionism.
From the first interview round and surveys, we concluded that
business experience is more important than formal education. The en­
trepreneurs confirmed the importance of working experience for
entrepreneurship. As for education, they noted the importance not of a
formal university education, but of having the necessary knowledge in
the field of performance and business in general.
Interviewees did not agree that their decision to become entrepre­
neurs was influenced by their leadership potential. However, they
clarified that the ability to be a leader is an important aspect of business.
Women also noted that their orientation to high values does not depend
on gender but rather on personal qualities. However, due to the high
degree of empathy, they may be more focused on social impact.
Finally, we intended to clarify whether the Finnish system supports
female entrepreneurs. All respondents noted that the Finnish environ­
ment was quite supportive. Among the disadvantages, they noticed the
difficulty of obtaining funding in the early stages of business develop­
ment and the high requirements of those programs that deal with this.
Entrepreneurs added that quotas for women are a great support, and
development in this direction can increase the number of women in
business. Factors affecting women’s entrepreneurship were identified
from the combined datasets and presented in Fig. 9. In this figure green
denotes positive, red negative, and white neutral affecting factors.
5. Discussion and implications
The findings we obtained during our research corresponded to the
initial findings from the literature. However, we have gained additional
insights that could visualize the situation of female entrepreneurship in
Finland and be utilized as a base for additional tests and investigations.
The authors assume that these results can correspond to the situation in
most Northern, highly developed European countries, too.
Our results have confirmed the presence of biased attitudes in
Y. Kovaleva et al.
Fig. 9. Factors affecting women’s entrepreneurship.
Finnish society. In both surveys and interviews, participants have
experienced special treatment toward them based on their gender. In
their childhood, 40% of survey participants had gender-based pressure
to choose their hobbies and education, while grown-up entrepreneurs
faced biased attitudes from investors and business partners. However, it
is hard to measure the extent to which these factors affect female de­
cisions to become entrepreneurs. The literature shows that stereotypes
have a negative influence on individuals’ confidence in a cross-gendered
environment [13,22,26,27,36]. Even though Finland has achieved great
results in terms of gender equality, biases still need to be eliminated
from society [4]. This is a challenging and long-term task that requires
further research. But from what we have learned from our study, one of
the ways is to help cross-gendered role models’ stories to be voiced. The
number of female-based success stories in the tech sector is low. Also,
compared to male-based stories, successful female entrepreneurs are not
as visible in the news, media, and society. As a result, these stereotypes
only reinforce existing stereotypes [45,48]. The interviews with women
business founders emphasized several times that while the women do
not necessarily need to become “one of the guys,” it sometimes seems to
make things easier.
As entrepreneurship was traditionally a male-dominant field, women
may have self-doubts entering that field, which is why they need strong
support from their surroundings. This could describe the fact that
9
Information and Software Technology 155 (2023) 107110
women become entrepreneurs after age 36. At this age, they already
have the necessary education and experience, and start to feel they are
ready for developing their own company. All the participants empha­
sized the importance of family support in becoming entrepreneurs. From
the practical side, interviewees mentioned the importance of state
involvement in female’s support to achieve gender-diversity in the
technical entrepreneurship. Those who were single-family caretakers
mentioned the financial insecurity they had when starting the business
and the need for additional support for single-mother-entrepreneurs. We
also noticed that almost all the interviewees came from the family of
entrepreneurs, which could give them additional support and confi­
dence in choosing this career path. However, it would be interesting to
investigate statistics among female entrepreneurs with a larger focus
group in further research.
Even though the literature showed that women tend to become en­
trepreneurs by the pressure of “pushing factors,” such as hitting glass
ceilings or other unfair treatment leading to dissatisfaction over working
as an employee, was not considered a strong driving force among our
study participants; in fact, becoming an entrepreneur without a strong
internal drive to become one was considered unfeasible and unrealistic.
Most interviewees mentioned working for social good as an encouraging
factor in an entrepreneurial career. Survey participants chose “intention
to change the world” as one of the top three factors affecting the
Y. Kovaleva et al. Information and Software Technology 155 (2023) 107110

likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur. This corresponds to the find­ Table 6

ings that women have a higher interest in achieving sustainability than Actions to promote female Tech entrepreneurship.
men [4] and want to see this “social good” potential in their future What can Actions Description
career [42,46]. Burkhardt et al. [7] has shown that having women in top help?
management positively influences the development of eco-friendly Raising Arrange discrimination By spreading knowledge about
products and commitment to resource reduction. It could relate to awareness “talks” (schools, discrimination, society can reduce
high empathy, which is considered to be feminine characteristics [22]. universities, media etc.) subconscious biases that people
Another feminine characteristic that was covered in the literature as a broadcast
Promote female stories There are successful female
stopping factor was women not being risk-takers. However, the in­ entrepreneurs, but their stories are
terviewees rejected this statement and linked female hesitations with less publicized. By promoting these
natural perfectionism. stories, we can increase the number
During our study, we discussed what is needed to become an entre­ of role models women can be
inspired by
preneur. Both survey participants and entrepreneurs paid special
Raising Develop courses This study shows that there is a
attention to soft skills, such as problem solving and risk tolerance. From confidence need in specific knowledge and
a practical view, females stated that entrepreneurship requires field and experience to develop company.
business knowledge; however, it does not require a university degree. Courses that provide necessary
Nevertheless, all the interviewees have higher education, the majority information about legal aspects,
getting funding, building a team
have master’s diplomas, and some of them have PhDs. We have noticed etc. may be a great help for women
that even though the surveys were aimed at women interested in the to feel confidence in starting a
tech sector, only 41% of those expressing their intention to become business
entrepreneurs were planning to find a company in the technology sector. Offering Provide quotas Interviewees mentioned that
support funding programs for women
This phenomenon could relate to female’s impostor syndrome in the
entrepreneurs, business
technical field, meaning that even if a woman has all the required conferences and events help female
qualities, she still feels not being good enough. The roots of this problem entrepreneurs a lot. By developing
could be examined in further research. and promoting these initiatives, we
It is important to remember that despite the disadvantages of being can support entrepreneurs in their
business development
women in technical entrepreneurship such as not being taken seriously
by investors, business partners and clients. There are also advantages to
being visible in the field, getting quotas targeted, especially for women, identified factors may not be relevant to business domains outside the
and attracting growing media interest in female stories. Entrepreneur­ tech sector, of the most common problems faced by non-academic en­
ship in general is associated with high responsibilities, high risks, and trepreneurs, as suggested by Poggesi et al. [40] or Cukier and Chavoushi
the need for constant learning and networking. All entrepreneurs, [11]. It is worth noting that our study focused only on female target
regardless of gender, face these circumstances. Therefore, it is not sur­ groups and entrepreneurs working in Finland. We admit that our
prising that some of our respondents considered employment to be a research participants may feel that they are being discriminated against
more attractive career. Our research aimed to understand what stops by gender, but this could be only their own perception. Similarly, their
those who want to become entrepreneurs and how to support them. experiences on entrepreneurship more than likely also are based, and
Some of the factors mitigate the negative aspects, while others reinforce reflect on the regional business and technology startup culture. For
them. further research, our findings could be supplemented and compared
Even though it is difficult to transform social norms and influence with the male point of view on entrepreneurship.
individuals’ personal traits, there are still some actions different in­
stitutions can do to close gender gap in female Tech entrepreneurship. 6. Conclusions
These actions are presented in a Table 6.
There are threats that should be acknowledged when addressing the In this study, we focused on the aspect of entrepreneurship from the
validity of our findings and the overall results [10,38]. For example, viewpoint of women in the technology sector. We conducted two online
validity, or data reliability in qualitative research are not the same as in surveys and interviews with the intention of understanding the factors of
quantitative research, such as surveys, so the results we presented in this women becoming/not becoming entrepreneurs, the difficulties women
article should be explained in more detail to put the results and obser­ have in their career path, and what can encourage women to launch the
vations presented in the study into a context. For example, Onwueg­ company.
buzie, and Leech list several threats in qualitative studies and The most common motivators for women to become interested in the
approaches to qualitative data analysis that can affect the results [38]. tech sector and to become entrepreneurs were related to being able to
According to their study, the most common and severe threat is personal make something new, innovate, and gain creative freedom to do what­
bias, meaning that the researchers apply their personal opinions, ever they wanted. The most common reasons why, according to the
knowledge, and beliefs in the data analysis, disregarding the patterns survey, women chose not to try entrepreneurship were related to the
and observations that do not fit or support their own theories. Obvi­ threat of financial risk(s), lack of support from the social environment,
ously, this can affect the data collection and analysis and, in the and lack of suitable examples and success stories. Another interesting
worst-case scenario, make the study unreliable [38]. In this study, these observation was that even women in the tech sector do not consider
risks were considered when planning and implementing the study with launching a tech startup, and that only 41% of women who considered
several actions. First, the surveys were exploratory in nature, with no founding a new business were interested in the technological sector.
intention of seeking only strong correlations from the dataset, and the Reflecting on the results collected from the survey and interviews, it
data collection and analysis was done by several researchers. Also, as seems that the best practical action to promote interest in entrepre­
always with the qualitative data, the interview observations should only neurship among the women in tech sector would be to offer examples,
be regarded as recommendations arising from that set of interviews. success stories and support from the environment; all of the interviewed
Outside this ecosystem, they might not be generalizable, but could be women mentioned the practical support from their family, friends, and
used as a guideline for further research considerations. For example, in the support networks from the government. Similarly, almost all in­
our interviews, we acknowledge that all of the interviewees were terviewees were from a family of entrepreneurs where their parents or
academically educated women, so the interview observations and

10
Y. Kovaleva et al.
close relatives acted as role models. While not a silver bullet, this would
promote interest among those who have the drive and personal interests
toward entrepreneurship.
As for future research, we identified that all our interviewees ended
up being women with academic backgrounds. To assess the hindrances
and factors affecting the decision-making process of becoming an
entrepreneur in more general terms, we plan to extend this survey to the
general population and make comparisons against the distinct cultural
regions, or countries, in our future projects. Regarding the factors
affecting female interest in STEM, we focused on pre-STEM studying
times, but further research may investigate more “entering the univer­
sity,” sustainability-focused ideas, and business model development
events like hackathons and “being a STEM student” aspects.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yekaterina Kovaleva: Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodol­
ogy, Visualization, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing –
review & editing. Sonja Hyrynsalmi: Conceptualization, Methodology,
Writing – review & editing. Andrey Saltan: Investigation, Data cura­
tion, Writing – original draft. Ari Happonen: Supervision, Writing –
review & editing. Jussi Kasurinen: Supervision, Project administration,
Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curation, Writing – original
draft, Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data Availability
Data will be made available on request.
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