FEMALE Think Tank
Many research papers never see the light of day after being presented for degrees, PhDs, or professorships. This means that fresh perspectives and possible new solutions get lost.
Innova Trends changes that for topics related to closing the gender gap in entrepreneurship.
By amplifying scholars’ voices and giving research papers public relevance, Innova Trends shines a light on real-world issues.
Inclusive Gender Equality in Research and Innovation
A Horizon Europe Project
Rachel Palmén – Senior Researcher at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (IN3-UOC), Barcelona
Gender equality researcher Dr. Rachel Palmén is co-editor of Advancing Gender Equality in Research Organisations and a leading voice in INSPIRE, Europe’s Centre of Excellence on Inclusive Gender Equality in Research and Innovation. She studies how research and innovation can become truly inclusive, not only in who takes part but also in the knowledge and innovations they produce.
INSPIRE was a four-year, €5 million Horizon Europe project with 14 partners and 12 communities of practice spanning more than 90 organisations in over 34 countries. Its research shows that Gender Equality Plans succeed when they are intersectional and developed together with underrepresented groups. For female entrepreneurs, it points to two levers for change. The first is “gender-proofing” every stage of a funding programme, from promoting the call to evaluating applicants. The second is reverse mentorship, where early-career researchers brief senior leaders on the barriers they face.
Bibliography:
Müller, J., & Palmén, R. (Eds.). (2026). Advancing Gender Equality in Research Organisations: Key Factors for Success. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003657552
Krzaklewska, E., et al. (2023). D2.1b KSH2 Report: Initiating Change Beyond the Centre. A Literature Review of Gender Equality Plans in Research Organisations across Europe. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10033095
Karaulova, M., Wienand, C., Walker, D., Bührer, S., Reidl, S., & Yorulmaz, M. (2023). D2.1e Gendered Innovations. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10033625
Gender Bias in Entrepreneurship: How Background Shapes Funding
Alessia Paccagnini – Associate Professor at University College Dublin
Award-winning economist Dr. Alessia Paccagnini (Top 5% female economists worldwide) studied how gender bias interacts with a founder’s background to shape venture capital funding — in a country famous for valuing entrepreneurship: the United States.
Based on a dataset of 2,088 U.S. startups, Paccagnini and co-authors demonstrate that female founders with a prior business failure are significantly less likely to secure venture capital compared to men with identical records. This suggests a systematic market inefficiency – where gendered perceptions override data-driven assessment of entrepreneurial potential.
Bibliography:
Pistilli, L., Paccagnini, A., Breschi, S., & Malerba, F. (2022). Gender Bias in Entrepreneurship: What is the Role of the Founders’ Entrepreneurial Background? Journal of Business Ethics, 187(2), 325–346. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05275-y
Beyond the ‘Seat at the Table’: A Deeper Look into Influence
Clara Plückelmann – Stockholm University
Examining how influence is distributed within organizations requires moving past surface indicators of equality to investigate the mechanisms that grant or restrict decision-making power. While research on participative decision-making (PDM) shows its benefits in increasing work satisfaction and lowering turnover, its gender dimensions have been largely unexplored.
In her study, Clara Plückelmann reveals a pervasive gap: women perceive significantly less influence in high-level strategic decisions, even in gender-balanced workplaces. This is often driven by subtle gender stereotypes that associate men with strategic competence and women with day-to-day, communal roles. The research highlights that merely including women in decision-making forums does not guarantee genuine influence or equal power.
By focusing on the structures, cultures, and informal dynamics that shape participation, Plückelmann’s work invites a deeper conversation on how to create decision-making processes that are both inclusive and effective. Clara’s work emphasizes the need for organizations to implement clear strategies and cultivate psychological safety to ensure every voice truly shapes strategic outcomes. Moreover, feeling included and heard in these high-level discussions is a powerful tool for fostering leadership aspirations, particularly for women at the start of their careers.
Bibliography:
Plückelmann, C., Sendén, M. G., Bernhard-Oettel, C., Leineweber, C., & Sczesny, S. (2024). Women’s and men’s experiences with participative decision-making at workplace and organizational levels. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1240117 Rebérioux, A., & Roudaut, G. (2019).
The Role of Rookie Female Directors in a Post‐Quota Period: Gender Inequalities within French Boards. Industrial Relations, a Journal of Economy and Society, 58(3), 423–483. https://doi.org/10.1111/irel.12238
Mompreneurship: More than a Trend?
Esther Onefuwa Oguns – University of Macerata
Research shows that parenting shapes abilities such as multitasking and emotional intelligence. ‘Mompreneurs’ challenge traditional assumptions that motherhood hinders professional growth, instead using these skills to enhance business success.
While changing societal perceptions of women’s roles are helpful, mothers who work as entrepreneurs also face specific challenges, such as limited access to funding and gender-based biases—barriers common in the context of female entrepreneurship.
Esther Oguns underscores the importance of targeted support, such as childcare, mentorship, and flexible work arrangements in addressing these challenges and promoting greater equity in entrepreneurial opportunities.
Read the interview with Esther Oguns
The Evidence Base of Unconscious Bias
Dr. Patrick Forscher – Research Lead, Busara Center
Unconscious bias has become a prominent concept, yet its actual impact on behaviour is often assumed rather than critically examined. To truly understand and address the effects of unconscious bias in practical settings, rigorous research needs to be conducted over time and using indicators with real-world relevance. The absence of this level of scrutiny from the majority of the existent literature on unconscious bias, alongside the tendency to use ‘tweaked’ methods to affirm widely accepted conclusions, highlights the broader issue of publication bias within academia.
This bias towards publishing certain types of research skews the scientific literature, undermining the reliability of conclusions drawn and potentially misinforming policy interventions. Dr Forscher’s observations call for a more critical and methodical approach to studying unconscious bias and enhancing the integrity of academic research. Committing to comprehensive research plans and publishing all results, even where confirming unexpected hypotheses, can improve the robustness of research outcomes.
Stereotypes in Entrepreneurship
Professor Katherine B. Coffman – Harvard Business School
The beliefs we hold about ourselves and our abilities are crucial for the kinds of opportunities we are willing to take up. Katherine B. Coffman’s academic work showcases that stereotypes influence the beliefs we hold about our abilities and those of others, and that the extent of this influence is dependent on the gender congruence of the respective area. The more ›different‹ we feel, the less we believe in our abilities.
Entrepreneurship as a male-dominated field is vulnerable to creating a culture based on exclusive stereotypes and beliefs, which prevents women from entering and wanting to compete. However, stereotypes are malleable, and there are ways to disrupt their influence on (self-)beliefs.
Fostering Female Entrepreneurship
Simone Berthel – ZHAW School for Management and Law
The ideal image of an entrepreneur is someone who can develop a highgrowth business, which women often do not want to associate with.
Simone Berthel‘s study ‘Fostering Female Entrepreneurship: The Development of a Model of Formal and Informal Factors’ highlights different factors which could improve the representation of women in entrepreneurship.
How Women can improve their venture pitch outcomes
Henrik Wesemann – University of St. Gallen
How female founders evaluate their minority status according to their social identity
Marlies Edlinger – University of St. Gallen
It’s a shocking fact but only 9% of (Co-)Founders in Switzerland are female. The good thing is – we can change it!
Marlies’ research paper about ‘How female founders evaluate their minority status according to their social identity’ brought up some interesting theses and insights.
Female Founders in Switzerland – Pathways to change
Léonie Wüthrich – Zurich University of Applied Science
While enterpreneurship is a form of business that is increasingly rapidly, not everyone is profiting from the development. There are significant gender discrepancies globally when it comes to business founders. Switzerland catagorized as a well-developed country with a gender equal environment faces that as well.
The perecntage of female founders comapred to male founders is low.
Watch in our talk with Léonie what we can do to change this!
“We ask men to win and women not to lose, closing the gender gap in the start-up funding”
Dana Kanze – Academy of Management Journal
The paper brought up some super interesting theses and insights. There is a bias in questions of investors that leads to significant differences in the $$$ start-ups raise, depending on if the questions are more promotion- or prevention-oriented. And now guess what: YES, it’s also significantly more likely that female entrepreneurs get prevention-oriented questions when they’re in pitch situations.
But those are only a few interesting facts so please listen to the full audio interview with Dana Kanze below.