Finalist for the OMT Division Best Paper on Entrepreneurship Award
The gender gap in technology entrepreneurship has been extensively documented, and a number of recent studies have sought the impact of individual factors such as education or professional experience. However, these factors are highly related and potentially offer compounding advantages or disadvantages to entrepreneurs. In this paper, we use a set-analytic approach that allows us to understand the combination of factors commonly exhibited by successful founders within the highly important context of digital technology ventures. We find that men have more pathways to tech entrepreneurship, and these pathways are less complex (more flexible), enabling more individuals to become founders. Reducing the gender gap in entrepreneurship requires finding opportunities for women to become founders through a greater variety of business and educational backgrounds.
