Abstract
Entrepreneurship provides a venue for individuals to (re)define their identities through their activities and vice versa. The overall aim of this dissertation is to understand women’s perceptions of their entrepreneurial identities in two different socio-cultural contexts. The study is based on in-depth interviews with women entrepreneurs in Sweden and Tanzania, and addresses three research questions. The first research question looks at how women perceived their entrepreneurial identity in relation to their self-identity. The second question analyses the influence of the socio-cultural context on women’s perceptions of their entrepreneurial identities, while the third looks at the role of entrepreneurship programs in influencing women’s perceptions of their entrepreneurial identities. My study contributes to the entrepreneurial identity research in the following ways. First, I develop a typology of women’s entrepreneurial identities i.e. solution seeker, self-actualizer, bona fide, missionary, informed and transition categories and propose a conceptual model. Second, the study provides insights on women’s perceptions of their entrepreneurial identity in relation to their self-identity, and on their individual agency. Third, the study contributes to our understanding of the impact of contextual factors on women’s perceptions of their entrepreneurial identities. In particular, I show how the impact of the social in-group and gender role ideologies varies across the different categories. Fourth, the study contributes to our understanding of the impact of entrepreneurship programs based on the different categories of women’s entrepreneurial identities. Lastly, I discuss the implications of the study’s findings for educators and policy makers.