Gender, leadership and venture capital: measuring women’s leadership in VC firm portfolios

Ruta Aidis · R. Sandra Schillo

20 citations0/0 files storedInternational Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship

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Gender Diversity and Inequality Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences Private Equity and Venture Capital

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a new index summarizing women’s leadership in entrepreneurial ventures (WLEV) in the context of venture capital (VC) firm portfolios. Gender representation among VC portfolio firms is a concern for academics, and increasingly for practitioners aiming to reap the benefits of gender diversity. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the institutional theory and gender role congruity theory, the authors present dimensions of women’s involvement in leadership roles in VC-funded companies. As previous research has not provided standard definitions, the authors clarify the relevant dimensions. In addition, the authors present an empirical analysis of 153 VC fund portfolios and demonstrate women’s involvement across the three key dimensions forming the WLEV Index: involvement in leadership, management and founding of portfolio companies. Findings The authors present a summary of WLEV index aligned with previous research. The index has suitable characteristics for future research and introduces a first comparison with existing statistics. The authors’ findings show relatively low scores of women’s leadership in the VC portfolio companies investigated, especially as compared to average USA companies. Originality/value This paper introduces standardized definitions for women’s leadership in terms of: women-led, women-founded and women-managed. This paper also introduces a methodology and constructs an index to uniformly compare VC firm portfolio companies according to all three dimensions of women’s leadership. These contributions can be expected to form the basis of future research on gender representation in VC portfolio companies.

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References

1991Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance 2002Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders.2009Women in the boardroom and their impact on governance and performance☆2001Index Construction with Formative Indicators: An Alternative to Scale Development 2006Why Research on Women Entrepreneurs Needs New Directions 2008Through the labyrinth: the truth about how women become leaders 2010The Gender and Ethnic Diversity of US Boards and Board Committees and Firm Financial Performance 2013Research on Women Entrepreneurs: Challenges to (and from) the Broader Entrepreneurship Literature?

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