The moderating influence of national culture on female and male entrepreneurs’ social network size and new venture growth

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to disentangle individual-level gender differences and norm-based gender roles and stereotypes to provide a finer-grained understanding of why female and male entrepreneurs experience different growth returns from their social networks across different national cultures. Design/methodology/approach This research uses a survey of 637 (278 female and 359 male) entrepreneurs across four nations varying on relational culture (importance of social relationships) and gender egalitarianism (importance of gender equality or neutrality in social and economic roles). Findings The authors find evidence that male entrepreneurs in high relational cultures benefit the most in terms of growth in revenues from larger network size while women in low relational cultures benefit the least. In cultures with low gender egalitarianism, male entrepreneurs benefit more from their larger social networks than did the female entrepreneurs. Practical implications The study presents implications for female entrepreneurs’ behaviors to gain more benefits from their social networks, especially in cultural contexts where relationships are important or where there is equality in gender roles. In these contexts, they may need to develop other strategies and rely less on social networks to grow their ventures. Social implications This research suggests that female entrepreneurs still are disadvantaged in some societies. National policy may focus on developing more opportunities and providing more support to women entrepreneurs as a valuable contributor to economic growth of the nations. Originality/value The authors disentangle the effects of gender differences, norm-based gender stereotypes and networks on entrepreneurial outcomes.