Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are notably important for innovation and technological development, which in turn are seen as drivers of social and economic growth. Hence, researchers and policy-makers have paid substantial attention to analyzing and promoting high-growth ventures in STEM fields. However, STEM fields are highly gender-skewed, regardless of whether the population considered is students, faculty members, graduates, top managers, or entrepreneurs. This is noticeable in the small number of women entrepreneurs with STEM backgrounds. This underrepresentation of women in innovation-driven business startups highlights existing gender biases and systemic disadvantages in social structures, making visible the double masculinity that exists at the intersection of STEM and entrepreneurship. This article addresses this issue by combining insights from research about women’s entrepreneurship and research about the gender aspects of STEM fields. We emphasize institutional, organizational, and individual factors influencing women’s entrepreneurship in STEM fields, laying the foundation for the articles included in this special issue. Finally, we discuss the way forward for research on the gender aspects of STEM entrepreneurship to help us create the knowledge needed to close this gender gap.

Purpose: Women in entrepreneurship can have a significant impact on economic and social development globally and particularly in developing countries. But the challenges entrepreneurial women face are unique and multiple, pressing the need for research and policies to maximize impact. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the challenges women start-up founders face to secure funding in the technology industry. The tech industry was selected because it is a non-traditional industry for women with high potential for role models to bridge an existing gap in information on women start-up founders to secure capital financing to attain business sustainability. It covers venture capital investors’ role, Latin American cultural reasons, and gender.Design/methodology/approach: This study is based on an inductive, qualitative approach and in-depth interviews with 20 women entrepreneurs and start-up founders from Latin American countries who received support from the Chilean Government sponsored accelerator “Start-Up Chile.”Findings: The analysis uncovered ten aspects that impact entrepreneurial women founders’ access to capital in three categories: capital needs, networks, and individual characteristics.Originality/value: This study identifies factors that affect women entrepreneurs in raising capital and in facing the following challenges: first, working in a non-traditional field for women as it is the technology industry, and second assuming a leadership role as start-up founders. The results offer recommendation with potential to drive public policies in Latin America, which may be scalable to other developing and also to developed countries where market systems prevail. The findings show that women entrepreneurs, but also men, seeking start-up financing and alternatives are a viable source of employment and economic sustainability to mitigate the effects of increasing levels of unemployment worldwide.

Purpose: Latin American investors are commonly suspicious of investing in copreneurial ventures (a male and female couple, integrated as a working team) and show even higher levels of uncertainty when the start-ups are led by a female founder. The purpose of this paper is to address issues related to women as leaders in copreneurial tech ventures and analyses whether these ventures are growth-oriented or conform to limited partnerships aimed primarily to meet their living standards. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative, inductive and constructive approach was required for addressing the research question. Three copreneurial women and two divorced copreneurs were interviewed. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze data and emerging themes. Findings: Copreneurial teams that work in the technology industry have similar and complementary levels of education and skills development. After three years working together, each partner becomes well aware of mutual skills and strengths. This allows them to define their respective roles. Both divide work and family, and have developed a level of mutual trust and commitment that is essential to move forward. Commonly they show workaholic tendencies with a high rational underpinning. All of these factors strengthen collaboration and in many instances this business liaison can remain intact despite a breakdown in the partners’ sentimental relationship. Additional findings show that their growth orientation takes multiple structures. Practical implications: This study provides information that can help investors make decisions to support copreneurial teams that optimize from the use of diverse talents of female and male partners. Originality/value: Although representing an increasingly common type of start-up team, copreneurship in technology has not yet capture much attention of scholars as case study in family business research.

Although the high levels in Latin America, women’s necessity-driven entrepreneurship is a field that has been little explored. Contemporary research suggests that entrepreneurs may experience less work-life conflict than other workers, but that gender differences mean that women are at a disadvantage in terms of uses of time and the sexual division of labor. We explore how 20 Chilean craftswomen experience their (productive) work time. The content analysis of group interviews shows that these socially at-risk women entrepreneurs achieve wellbeing at work by entering a state of flow. They describe their experience as personal time, which resembles leisure more than it does actual work. This source of emotional wellbeing seems to be a personal strategy that helps them cope with their precarious situation. Their boundaries between work and personal time are blurred. Our findings illustrate how uses of time can be perceived differently in different contexts. We put particular emphasis on the restorative nature of personal time and the need for further research in this area from a gender approach.

This paper explores the challenges women working in high-technology start-ups most frequently have to face and solve. The study is based in a literature review of issues that help to explain the differences between the genders showing that this is an understudied research area with broad opportunity to further studies with potential to uncover new topics and innovation hubs in the field in and outside the USA. Findings include recommendations about an existing gap and offers possible solutions to conduct systematic research leading to the development of effective approaches to increase and improve the participation of women in technology and business start-ups as an imperative to foster their inclusion in the global economy.