Maternal and paternal influence on female entrepreneurial identity: a narrative analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose This study explores the role of maternal and paternal influence in shaping the entrepreneurial identities and motivations of female founders. It seeks to fill the gap in the literature by examining how different forms of parental influence affect female entrepreneurs. Design/methodology/approach This research uses a narrative analysis approach to examine the life stories of 22 female entrepreneurs from Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and Brazil. Through in-depth interviews, the study identifies key themes that illustrate the impact of parental influence on entrepreneurial identity formation. Findings The analysis identifies seven distinct themes: “Mom’s Dream,” “Absence,” “Equality First,” “Never Enough,” “Overprotected,” “Atypical Role Model,” and “The Rock.” These themes highlight the complex interplay between family dynamics and entrepreneurial motivations, demonstrating how parental roles and attitudes significantly contribute to forming entrepreneurial identity. Research limitations/implications The study’s findings are based on a relatively small sample size from four countries, which may limit the generalizability of the results. Future research could expand the sample and explore diverse cultural contexts to enhance understanding. Longitudinal studies could also provide deeper insights into the evolving impact of parental influence on entrepreneurial identity over time. Practical implications The findings offer valuable insights for designing targeted support programs for female entrepreneurs. Mentorship programs can address gaps in parental support, while entrepreneurship education can highlight the interplay of maternal and paternal influences in fostering confidence and resilience. Encouraging parents to support their daughters’ entrepreneurial ambitions can help build confidence and resilience in future female entrepreneurs, contributing to a more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem. Originality/value This study advances identity theory in entrepreneurship by integrating family dynamics into understanding entrepreneurial identity formation. It highlights the dual influences of mothers and fathers and their complementary contributions to resilience, confidence, and ambition. The research also provides a nuanced perspective on gender dynamics within entrepreneurship, emphasizing the importance of family context.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".