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Kylie Hwang
Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, United States
Sahiba Chopra
Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
Michael Mueller-Smith
U. of Michigan
Brittany Street
U. of Missouri
Kylie Hwang
Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, United States
Grady Raines
Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, United States
Grady Raines
Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, United States
Solene Delecourt
Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
Kunyuan Qiao
Georgetown U., United States
Howard Aldrich
U. of North Carolina, United States
John Dencker
Northeastern U., United States
Peter Polhill
ILR at Cornell
Ryan Coles
U. of Connecticut, United States
Keith Finlay
U.S. Census Bureau
Entrepreneurs from under-represented groups, inherently face inequalities in starting and succeeding in their entrepreneurial endeavors. In recent years, significant progress has been made in understanding the entrepreneurial challenges faced by diverse under-represented groups, including racial minorities, women, immigrants, and justice-impacted individuals. While such previous work has been influential in identifying barriers such as restricted access to human, social, or financial resources (Kim, Aldrich, and Keister 2006) and biased evaluators (Fairlie and Robb 2008) faced by under-represented entrepreneurs, we have limited knowledge on how institutional barriers – ranging from formal regulations to informal societal and cultural norms – shape and aggravate entrepreneurial inequalities. Thus, our symposium aims to address the underexplored role and impact of diverse and novel institutional contexts in shaping entrepreneurial inequality for under-represented groups. This symposium addresses this question by focusing on different under-represented populations including individuals with criminal records, women, and racial minorities, leveraging a diverse set of experimental and archival methods. Each paper in our symposium explores distinct and novel institutional contexts encountered by under-represented groups such as formal regulations on financial access for individuals with criminal records, informal legacies from historical slavery, social and cultural norms around women entrepreneurs in Mexico, and gender bias in the start-up employee market. Our presenters further showcase novel consequences of such institutional contexts, by documenting that institutional barriers to entrepreneurship not only leads to stunted entry and success by under-represented entrepreneurs, but also perpetuate inequalities in unforeseen areas by exacerbating gender-bias in innovation and increasing crime among the most vulnerable populations. These presentations collectively broaden our understanding of the impact of institutional barriers on under-represented entrepreneurs, examining novel mechanisms across a variety of institutional contexts as well as unique consequences. Through our symposium, we hope to underscore the importance of creating inclusive formal and informal institutional ecosystems, which are crucial for leveling the playing field in entrepreneurship.
Author: Keith Finlay – U.S. Census Bureau
Author: Kylie Jiwon Hwang – Northwestern Kellogg School of Management
Author: Michael Mueller-Smith – U. of Michigan
Author: Brittany Street – U. of Missouri
Author: Grady Wallace Raines – Cornell SC Johnson College of Business
Author: Peter Polhill – ILR at Cornell
Author: Ryan Scott Coles – U. of Connecticut
Author: Kunyuan Qiao – Georgetown U.
Author: John Dencker – Northeastern U.
Author: Solene Delecourt – Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
Author: Sahiba Chopra – Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley