Longitudinal analysis of gender differences regarding entrepreneurial resilience

Abstract

The present climate, economic, technological, and geopolitical turbulences place a question mark over entrepreneurial resilience in the face of upcoming instabilities. Are new and mature entrepreneurs ready for more internal and external challenges? In this context, can we pose the existential question: to be or not to be? The main aim of this paper is to study entrepreneurial resilience from a gender perspective among graduates from a business incubator programme. This research employs perception-based longitudinal data obtained from graduate entrepreneurs from a business incubator programme in Madrid. We found that male graduate entrepreneurs have higher levels of resilience based on individual variables, such as self-efficacy and decision-making, but female graduate entrepreneurs are less affected by situational or exogenous variables, such as economic crises, labour legislation, competitive environment, and technological changes. These findings suggest that managers and instructors of business incubators should improve training programmes by considering gender specificities. These programmes could use the latest smart technologies to simulate, adapt and personalise training according to needs from a gender perspective. Thus, gender-focused training programmes could boost other inclusive policies for integrating and creating more diverse entrepreneurial intention and resilience programmes.