‘Involuntary exit for personal reasons’ – A gendered critique of the business exit decision

Abstract

Women are more likely to exit from entrepreneurship for personal reasons; such exits are deemed uneventful and voluntary. We critically evaluate such assumptions by adopting a gendered critique to unpack the nature of such personal reasons arguing that they largely relate to the stress of accommodating incompatible caring/domestic and entrepreneurial labour demands. This, we argue, leads to forced voluntarism which, for many women, instigates conflicting notions of regret, relief and resentment. To explore these arguments, we draw upon in-depth interviews with 16 United Kingdom women entrepreneurs who had voluntarily exited from their ventures citing personal reasons. The evidence describes how women made sense of the decision-making process to exit from entrepreneurship questioning the voluntary nature of the exit decision. We conclude by noting how once again, gendered assumptions conceal the contradictory demands women encounter when trying to reconcile the needs of the household and of their ventures analysing the implications this has for how exit decisions are categorised and the false picture this presents of alleged voluntarism.