IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/120477.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Breaking the glass ceiling: empowering female entrepreneurs through female mentors

Author

Listed:
  • Germann, Frank
  • Anderson, Stephen J.
  • Chintagunta, Pradeep K.
  • Vilcassim, Naufel J.

Abstract

Among the millions of entrepreneurs in developing economies, few are able to earn a decent livelihood. To help these entrepreneurs succeed, governmental and nongovernmental organizations invest billions of dollars every year in providing training programs. Many of these programs involve providing entrepreneurs with mentors. Unfortunately, the effects of these programs are often muted, or even null, for woman-owned firms. Against this backdrop, we tested whether gender matching, where female entrepreneurs are randomly paired with a female mentor, could help address the gender gap. Findings from a randomized controlled field experiment with 930 Ugandan entrepreneurs show that mentor gender has a powerful impact on female entrepreneurs. Firm sales and profits of female entrepreneurs guided by a female mentor increased by, on average, 32% and 31% compared with the control group, and these estimates are even larger for female entrepreneurs with high aspirations. In contrast, female entrepreneurs guided by a male mentor did not significantly improve performance compared with the control group. We provide suggestive mechanism evidence that female mentor-mentee arrangements were characterized by more positive engagements.

Suggested Citation

  • Germann, Frank & Anderson, Stephen J. & Chintagunta, Pradeep K. & Vilcassim, Naufel J., 2024. "Breaking the glass ceiling: empowering female entrepreneurs through female mentors," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120477, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:120477
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/120477/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David McKenzie, 2017. "Identifying and Spurring High-Growth Entrepreneurship: Experimental Evidence from a Business Plan Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(8), pages 2278-2307, August.
    2. Scott E. Carrell & Marianne E. Page & James E. West, 2010. "Sex and Science: How Professor Gender Perpetuates the Gender Gap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1101-1144.
    3. David Card & Ciprian Domnisoru & Seth G. Sanders & Lowell Taylor & Victoria Udalova, 2022. "The Impact of Female Teachers on Female Students' Lifetime Well-Being," NBER Working Papers 30430, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. de Mel, Suresh & McKenzie, David & Woodruff, Christopher, 2014. "Business training and female enterprise start-up, growth, and dynamics: Experimental evidence from Sri Lanka," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 199-210.
    5. Sunil Gupta & Valarie Zeithaml, 2006. "Customer Metrics and Their Impact on Financial Performance," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(6), pages 718-739, 11-12.
    6. Stephen J. Anderson & Rajesh Chandy & Bilal Zia, 2018. "Pathways to Profits: The Impact of Marketing vs. Finance Skills on Business Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(12), pages 5559-5583, December.
    7. Lars Ivar Oppedal Berge & Kjetil Bjorvatn & Bertil Tungodden, 2015. "Human and Financial Capital for Microenterprise Development: Evidence from a Field and Lab Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(4), pages 707-722, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Grover,Arti Goswami & Imbruno,Michele, 2020. "Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9461, The World Bank.
    2. Lars Ivar Oppedal Berge & Armando José Garcia Pires, 2020. "Gender, formality, and entrepreneurial success," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 881-900, December.
    3. David McKenzie & Anna Luisa Paffhausen, 2019. "Small Firm Death in Developing Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(4), pages 645-657, October.
    4. David Alfaro‐Serrano & Tanay Balantrapu & Ritam Chaurey & Ana Goicoechea & Eric Verhoogen, 2021. "Interventions to promote technology adoption in firms: A systematic review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(4), December.
    5. Delius, Antonia & Sterck, Olivier, 2024. "Cash transfers and micro-enterprise performance: Theory and quasi-experimental evidence from Kenya," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    6. Gonzalez-Uribe, Juanita & Hmaddi, Ouafaa, 2022. "The multi-dimensional impacts of business accelerators: what does the research tell us?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115461, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Rosas, Nina & Acevedo, Maria Cecilia & Zaldivar, Samantha, 2022. "Starting points matter: Cash plus training effects on youth entrepreneurship, skills, and resilience during an epidemic," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    8. Evan Borkum & Paolo Abarcar & Laura Meyer & Matthew Spitzer, "undated". "Jordan Refugee Livelihoods Development Impact Bond Evaluation Framework," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 602dafe521fe4467854dcd45e, Mathematica Policy Research.
    9. Lucia Dalla Pellegrina & Giorgio Di Maio & Paolo Landoni & Emanuele Rusinà, 2021. "Money management and entrepreneurial training in microfinance: impact on beneficiaries and institutions," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(3), pages 1049-1085, October.
    10. González-Uribe, Juanita & Reyes, Santiago, 2021. "Identifying and boosting “Gazelles”: Evidence from business accelerators," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 260-287.
    11. Gabriela Calderon & Jesse M. Cunha & Giacomo De Giorgi, 2020. "Business Literacy and Development: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Rural Mexico," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(2), pages 507-540.
    12. Oriana Bandiera & Robin Burgess & Erika Deserranno & Ricardo Morel & Imran Rasul & Munshi Sulaiman & Jack Thiemel, 2022. "Microfinance and Diversification," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(S1), pages 239-275, June.
    13. Jing Cai & Adam Szeidl, 2018. "Interfirm Relationships and Business Performance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(3), pages 1229-1282.
    14. Buvinic, Mayra & Knowles, James C. & Witoelar, Firman, 2022. "The unfolding of women’s economic empowerment outcomes: Time path of impacts in an Indonesia trial," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    15. Solène Delecourt & Anne Fitzpatrick, 2021. "Childcare Matters: Female Business Owners and the Baby-Profit Gap," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(7), pages 4455-4474, July.
    16. Ahmed Elsayed & Soiliou Daw Namoro & Rania Roushdy, 2022. "Empowering women in conservative settings: evidence from an intervention in rural Egypt," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 1287-1322, December.
    17. Giambra, Samuele & McKenzie, David, 2021. "Self-employment and migration," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    18. Higuchi, Yuki & Mhede, Edwin P. & Sonobe, Tetsushi, 2019. "Short- and medium-run impacts of management training: An experiment in Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 220-236.
    19. Alaref, Jumana & Brodmann, Stefanie & Premand, Patrick, 2020. "The medium-term impact of entrepreneurship education on labor market outcomes: Experimental evidence from university graduates in Tunisia," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    20. Renaud Bourlès & Anastasia Cozarenco & Dominique Henriet & Xavier Joutard, 2022. "Business Training with a Better-Informed Lender: Theory and Evidence from Microcredit in France," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 148, pages 65-108.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    female entrepreneurs; gender gap; glass ceiling; mentorship gender-matching; randomized controlled field experiment; small firm growth; developing economies; (ESRC) joint Growth Research Program; the Deloitte Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (DIIE); and the universities the authors were affiliated with when the research was conducted.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L20 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - General
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:120477. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.