Overcoming barriers? The mixed results of social innovation accelerator programs for women entrepreneurs

Deskripsi

Entrepreneurship accelerators are in creasingly promoted as structural interventions to close gender gaps, yet studies have not established a differentialimpact of participation for women. This prior evidence drawn from high-tech, male-dominated settings may overlook how outcomes differ in more feminized domains such as social innovation. Using unique multi-level data from 1417 ventures applying to 33 accelerators, we examine whether average effects conceal variation across institutional environments and program designs. We find that in more gender-egalitarian countries, women-led ventures performed better than peers after participating, especially in programs aiming to support women. In less egalitarian environments, however, par-ticipation offered negative or no such advantages even in gender supportive programs. These results suggest that well-intended interventions to advance women entrepreneurs are context-dependent and may sometimes rein-force the very disparities they intended to diminish.