Every Woman Is a Vessel: An Exploratory Study on Gender and Academic Entrepreneurship in a Nascent Technology Transfer System

Previous research shows that women are under-represented among academic entrepreneurs, indicating a gender gap in this field. Using a case-oriented approach combining interview analysis and fuzzy-set analysis, we explore potential barriers to women’s engagement in academic entrepreneurship as perceived by both the researchers and the heads of technology transfer offices (TTOs). The inclusion of the latter group foreshadows the relevance of different actors who can influence the gender gap in academic entrepreneurship settings. We thus contribute to the body of knowledge about female academic entrepreneurship. The potential barriers are modelled as internal and external. We reveal that internal barriers (e.g., work-family balance and ambition) are perceived as more crucial than external barriers by both groups of respondents. However, TTOs and researchers seem to partially disagree about those barriers, which may impact the effectiveness of mechanisms implemented to mitigate the gender gap in academic entrepreneurship. Moreover, although both TTOs and researchers recognise the gender gap, neither party identified TTOs as responsible for reducing the associated disparities. Our fuzzy-set analysis, performed to explore the causal relationships between different gender gap conditions and female academic entrepreneurial activity, reveals two combinations of barriers underlying women’s low engagement in academic entrepreneurship.