A contextual analysis of entrepreneurial identity and experience: women entrepreneurs in Turkey

ABSTRACT This study aims to understand the complex mechanisms of entrepreneurship in context and explores the entrepreneurial identities and experiences of women entrepreneurs in relation to opportunity structures in Turkey. Turkey’s position at the boundary of Western and Middle Eastern geographies and cultures presents a compelling context for the study of women’s entrepreneurship. Drawing on life-story interviews with 11 women entrepreneurs, this study analyses social, political, and institutional opportunity structures in Turkey. The findings illustrate that women entrepreneurs engage in exaggerated perfectionism, strategic political distancing, and closed social positioning in relation to the opportunity structures in Turkey. This study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by providing a more in-depth and nuanced understanding on the relationship between different opportunity structures and women entrepreneurs and herewith responding to the dominance of Western thinking and context on entrepreneurial experiences and identities.