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When does market hostility curtail competitive performance through diminished entrepreneurial efforts? Buffering effects of women entrepreneurs’ family business support

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Abstract

This article investigates the mediating role of women entrepreneurs’ reluctance to adopt an entrepreneurial strategic posture in the negative relationship between their perceptions of market hostility and competitive performance. It also notes a potential buffering role of family business support. According to survey data collected among women entrepreneurs in Ireland, beliefs about unfriendly competitive environments undermine business success, because these entrepreneurs refrain from pursuing entrepreneurial business activities. This mediating role is less prominent for women entrepreneurs who can count on family members who help them with their business. For entrepreneurship stakeholders, this study specifies a key mechanism—namely, a preference for conservative instead of entrepreneurial strategic approaches—by which ruminations about adverse market conditions translate into strategic choices that undermine firm performance. Yet it offers some good news too, in showing that this harmful process can be subdued by the presence of adequate family support.

Plain English Summary

Self-fulfilling prophecy: Fear about market-induced underperformance can undermine women entrepreneurs’ actual competitive performance, unless family support overturns the challenge. Two critical factors determine whether women entrepreneurs’ perceptions of threatening competitive markets compromise their business’ performance. First, they adopt conservative strategic approaches, such that their preoccupation with hostile markets ultimately diminishes their competitive success. Second, this detrimental process might not occur if women entrepreneurs can count on active support from their family. The key takeaway is that family support offers a critical benefit, by helping women entrepreneurs who are stressed by hostile markets become less complicit in hindering their firms’ performance even more.

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Notes

  1. More information about the company can be found at www.iff-international.com

  2. The high percentage of service companies in the sample reflects a possible weakness of this study in terms of external validity. This concern is mitigated, though, by controlling for industry in the statistical analyses. The results for the hypothesized relationships are robust to the inclusion of industry.

  3. One item (“My firm uses only ‘tried-and-true’ procedures, systems, and methods,” reverse coded) was omitted from the analyses due to its low reliability.

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This research was funded by research grant no. 2017/27/B/HS4/02075 for Eugene Kaciak, National Science Centre, Poland.

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De Clercq, D., Kaciak, E. & Thongpapanl, N.(. When does market hostility curtail competitive performance through diminished entrepreneurial efforts? Buffering effects of women entrepreneurs’ family business support. Small Bus Econ 59, 827–844 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-021-00549-7

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