Transnational entrepreneurship. Insights from female entrepreneurs in the modest fashion industry

Abstract

This paper aims to explore transnational entrepreneurship, with a particular focus on the processes of exploring and exploiting opportunities across borders for female entrepreneurs in the modest fashion industry. Modest fashion (MF) -conservative and non-revealing clothing- provides an understudied and relevant research context in which it is possible to analyse the role of transnational communities and their culture, in addition to the role of religious values, in entrepreneurship and –more specifically- in female entrepreneurship. The study is based on multiple case studies of female transnational entrepreneurs (FTEs) in the modest fashion industry, using an exploratory and grounded research methodology. The findings illustrate that FTEs cope with their multi-layered identities and transform them into entrepreneurial opportunities. They leverage their transnational family and transnational community for international opportunities' exploration and exploitation, while they leverage the emergent transnational MF ecosystem for international opportunities' exploitation. This study contributes to studies on international entrepreneurship and, more specifically, sheds light on a less explored case of transnational entrepreneurship. For instance, it underlines the role of religious values in the process of transnational entrepreneurship, from the opportunity perspective. It also responds to recent calls for research in contextualising entrepreneurship by highlighting the role of cultural and gender variables in exploring and exploiting international opportunities across borders.