Venture Capital: An International Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

Special Issue on “New perspectives on women entrepreneurs and finance”

Editors: Claire Leitch, Friederike Welter and Colette Henry

Call for papers

The genesis of this call arises from the papers presented at the DIANA International conferences and associated publications

which have explored women’s approaches to acquiring financial and other resources to build and grow their

ventures. Specifically, it builds on an earlier special issue published in this journal in 2006 that investigated how women-

owned and -led businesses were financed. While a substantial body of literature now exists on gender and access to finance,

interest in this area remains the subject of debate for academics, policy makers and business support professionals. To date,

most research has concentrated on women’s access to finance at the start-up stage (Sena et al., 2008; Roper and Scott, 2009),

women entrepreneurs’ access to external finance (Carter and Shaw, 2006; Carter et al., 2007), and the differences between

men and women investors and professional support advisers (Harrison and Mason, 2007). The general themes that emerge

from the literature to date suggest that women’s start-ups are smaller than men’s; they tend to be under-capitalised, are less

likely to take on debt finance, are more risk-averse, locally based and young (i.e. less than three years old), and operate in

sectors where growth might be limited.

A recently completed review of 30 years of gender and entrepreneurship research (by Henry, Foss and Ahl, forthcoming)

found 'finance' to be amongst the most popular topics; yet despite this, we do not seem to have progressed very far in terms

of women's access to entrepreneurial finance, whether formal or informal. Indeed, several questions still need to be

addressed: Why does the gender gap persist in obtaining financing for a new business? Do financing agencies discriminate

against women entrepreneurs, or is this simply the perception of women entrepreneurs and funding officers? Does the

persistent underrepresentation of women in the financing industry, especially in venture capital, play a role? Do women

entrepreneurs have better access to the new funding sources such as crowdfunding? Which implications can research on

financing women-owned businesses offer for policy-makers and those supporting women entrepreneurs?

This special issue aims to address some of the above questions, and is so doing, to encourage new perspectives on extant

debates on gender and the financing of entrepreneurial ventures. These should reflect global shifts in economies, cultures,

business trends and social norms. Topics such as social enterprise, non-profit venturing, corporate social responsibility,

technology and scientific-based women's entrepreneurship may offer particularly novel 'sites' for exploring such new

dimensions. Thus, we welcome both empirical and conceptual papers, and we are especially interested in manuscripts that

critically reflect on current knowledge in relation to women’s entrepreneurship and financing from a regional, national and

international perspective. Specific topics that would be of interest to the special issue editors include, but not exclusively

so, the following:

- New empirical evidence on the gender gap in financing a business, e.g., on new funding sources or the representation

of women in the financing industry (venture capital, business angels, crowdfunding, etc.). Which types of finance

do women entrepreneurs access (credit/ debt/ equity/ non-mainstream financial systems)?

- Empirical evidence on the impact of the global economic financial crisis such as contraction in lending and access

to credit: is there a gender element?

- Ethnicity, gender and access to finance: How does women’s seclusion from the public arena, the role of religion

and a lack of mobility impact on finance?

- Voluntary and non-voluntary exclusion – including the discouraged borrower but also on social and cultural grounds

(developed, developing country perspective)

- The importance of context at all levels: developed vs developing world, intra and inter-country variations in access

to financing; the influence and impact of different banking systems and regimes – international perspective

- Papers questioning the dominance of research from a Western and developed countries’ perspective, exploring

women’s access to finance in developing countries and highlighting the impact of social, cultural, institutional

factors – ownership of property, access to education etc.

- Supply side issues such as the impact of recent regulatory and structural reforms of banking and financial services

sector in UK, US and Europe and the influence of gender.

- Second-generation forms of gender bias: are there institutional and social structures which might perpetuate

discriminatory practices irrespective of existence of equal opportunity legislation? Is this more evident in developed

countries which arguably might have a more sophisticated regulatory regime?

Timeline and anticipated date of publication

Submission of manuscripts 30 October 2015

First review decision 31 December 2015

Notification to authors 15 January 2016

Submission of revised manuscripts 15 April 2016

Second review decisions 30 June 2016

Notification to authors 15 July 2016

Submission of revised manuscripts 31 October 2016

Publication Early 2017

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically, applying the journal's template, direct to the special issue editors: Claire

Leitch (c.leitch@lancaster.ac.uk), Friederike Welter (welter@uni-siegen.de), Colette Henry (Colette.henry@dkit.ie).

Papers will be double-blind peer reviewed following the normal practice of the journal.

Further details and discussion of potential submission are welcome. Please address queries to the special issue editors: Claire

Leitch (c.leitch@lancaster.ac.uk), Friederike Welter (welter@uni-siegen.de), Colette Henry (Colette.henry@dkit.ie)