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ABSTRACT
Recent studies have attested to both the gradual rise in the numbers of female entrepreneurs operating in foreign markets and an important enabling role of networks in the internationalization process. However, despite these developments, the actual characteristics of female international entrepreneurial networks and how these different constituent properties have been leveraged as part of the internationalization process is less well understood. This article contributes to this gap in knowledge by decomposing the networks of female international entrepreneurs into structural and relational components using ego-network analysis, prior to examining how these different components were instrumental in facilitating international expansion. Our study involves eight female international entrepreneurs in the fashion industry from Denmark. Findings from this mixed-methods study show that female international entrepreneurs typically have small, dense, and homogeneous network structures, with strong ties, reciprocity, and trust. Furthermore, intra-industry contacts were mobilized considerably more that affective networks, while many network ties were not leveraged to expand internationally.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The methodology for conducting ego-centric network data collection will be expounded upon in section 3.3.
2. Consistent with Davidsson and Wiklund (Citation2001), the entrepreneurial firm networks equate with the founder´s personal network.
3. The use of the prefix ‘important’ (rather than simply ‘matters’) is often invoked (e.g. Klyver and Hindle Citation2011) to avoid respondent fatigue (Cornwell et al. Citation2009).
4. I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for raising these competing potential explanations.
5. Surrogate names have been adopted to preserve respondent anonymity.
6. As both women co-owned this firm and were jointly responsible for international activities, they both completed the ego-network, and results were aggregated.
7. It is referred to as a ‘Likert-type scale’ because it is an ordinal scale from 1 to 5, but unlike a conventional Likert scale, it lacks a neutral midpoint. Likert-type scales measure perceptions where all the scale points are ‘positive’, though varying in degree. For example, Moran (Citation2005) used a 5-point Likert-type to measure closeness where 1 = distant, and 5 = very close. Similarly, van Emmerik (Citation2006) used a 4-point Likert-type scale to measure emotional intensity ranging from 1 = none, 2 = not so strong, 3 = reasonably strong, to 4 = very strong. Likert-type scales thus require the subjective assigning of labels relating to the different scores. When measuring emotional intensity, scores of 4 and 5 were accordingly deemed to represent ‘strong ties’, whereas and scores of 1–3 were characterized as ‘weak ties’.