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Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on young white-collar women training bodies after work in Shanghai, I demonstrate that core muscles serve as visual indexes of discipline and hard-work, and that women create social spaces to collectively cultivate such dispositions. The socially sanctioned value of core muscles is connected to the discourse of 'having it all' increasingly popular among professional women in corporate, urban China. This paper elaborates on how bodily training transposes dispositions of work ethics beyond the workplace and on women's anxieties about their bodies at the intersection of productive and reproductive demands from the society. This paper builds on and critiques existing approaches to the body, and attends not only to the woman's body at the intersection of production and reproduction but also to the social aspect of bodily training in spaces between home and work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to add a gender perspective to the current ecosystem of entrepreneurship education whereby an innovative model of the female entrepreneurship education ecosystem (FEEE) consisting of five stakeholders (university, government, society, enterprise and the international community) is examined. Design/methodology/approach: The study conducted an online questionnaire among 505 respondents from two universities and one higher vocational college in China. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test the correlation between factors and structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to test the five hypotheses proposed in the study. Findings: The results indicated that the five stakeholders (the university, government, society, enterprise and international community) positively affect FEEE. The study emphasizes the urgent demand to consider gender perspectives in the ecosystem of entrepreneurship education and provides plausible ways to conduct female-targeted education with the joint efforts of different stakeholders. Practical implications: The study aims to increase the number of future female entrepreneurs, enhance the future skills of female students in the digital era and ultimately advance humankind. The study emphasizes the urgent demand to consider gender-perspective in the entrepreneurship education ecosystem and provides plausible ways to conduct female-targeted education with the joint efforts of different stakeholders. Originality/value: This paper sheds light on evaluating FEEE through five stakeholders' dimensions, which explores the solutions to the current female entrepreneurship education (FEE) issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the paradoxical impact of political legitimacy by exploring the relationship between legitimacy due to political inclusion by the state and subsequent strategic actions by entrepreneurs in both domestic and global contexts in a transition economy. We argue that political legitimacy conferred by the state affects a firm's strategies in different ways because it is associated with both benefits and constraints. Using a unique dataset of more than six thousand privately owned enterprises in China, we demonstrate that after an institutional change that permitted the inclusion of entrepreneurs into an elite political system (the Communist Party of China) in 2001, private firms became more motivated to invest in their domestic production but less incentivized to form international cooperation strategies. We further find that the impact of the legitimacy from political inclusion on domestic production was less pronounced for firms in places where the market economy was more established and when entrepreneurs are female. For entrepreneurs with past work experiences in the government or in state-owned enterprises, the negative impact of political inclusion on global cooperation was strengthened. These findings have important implications for research on legitimacy, entrepreneurship, and business strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss China's New Silk Road initiative as an opportunity for European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to export to Chinese market. It offers research propositions on redefining the business process of European SMEs and Chinese importers in light of the initiative.Design/methodology/approach SMEs' export barriers, particularly in SCM and marketing, are identified through literature review. Then they are discussed in accordance with the measures that New Silk Road proposed.Findings Logistic infrastructure development under the New Silk Road significantly lowers the supply chain barrier. Marketing remains a challenge for European SMEs to export to China. This paper argues that the European SMEs and the Chinese importers should create closer collaboration, expand their relationship beyond SCM, and integrate their marketing efforts for mutual benefits.Research limitations/implications Several future research areas are proposed in this paper. The authors invite researchers and practitioners to deepen the discussion with empirical evidence.Practical implications The New Silk Road has already become a high stake project for many countries involved. Many measures are yet to be defined and the stakeholders, including industries and businesses, should have an influence on their definition. This paper provides the authors' viewpoints on how businesses should act in this initiative.Originality/value Despite being an important topic of the world's economy in the recent years, the New Silk Road initiative has rarely been studied in management research, possibly due to lack of evidence. As its development significantly sped up since 2017, it is high time that the research community starts to contribute to the knowledge building in this project. This paper is among the firsts to call for and to propose avenues for future research efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the continuing growth in numbers of women entrepreneurs in China since the 1980s, research in this area has not kept pace with the development. In this paper, we critically review the current situation of women's entrepreneurship in China and the status quo of research in this field. We then analyse the political, social, cultural, organizational, and individual barriers women entrepreneurs may encounter, as well as the policy initiatives and institutional and social support to promote women entrepreneurship. We further outline the main theoretical perspectives that have been mobilized to inform research on women's entrepreneurship in China and indicate areas for future studies and how they may be framed. We argue for the need to adopt a more critical approach, such as feminist discourse analysis and a critical socio-technological perspective to inform future research, to shed light on a range of phenomena related to women's entrepreneurship that have yet to receive adequate research attention. Our review has implications for human resource development in China and other societal contexts with similar cultural norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the association between board characteristics and the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) assurance decision in China. By examining 2054 firm-years of Chinese listed companies with CSR reports from 2008 to 2012, we find that firms with a large board size, more female directors, and separation of CEO and chairman positions are more likely to engage in CSR assurance. Gender diversity also influences the CSR assurance provider choice. However, board independence and overseas background of the CEO do not affect the CSR assurance decision. Inconsistent with our prediction, firms with foreign directors are less likely to engage in voluntary CSR assurance. In summary, this research provides in-depth insights into the determinants of Chinese firms’ voluntary CSR assurance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how the post-Cold War geopolitical context penetrated through the struggles and empowerment of North Korean female defector entrepreneurs in South Korea. Reconceptualizing the notion of intersectionality, the study focuses on a grey area of informality and the resilience of these women. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observations, the findings indicate that these women leveraged geopolitical limits to develop their entrepreneurial assets. Informality developed through their involvement in Jangmadang and cross-border mobilities via informal brokerage. Through human-trafficked marriages, they stayed in China, learning the Chinese language and working in South Korean companies. The disadvantages of the job market and gender roles motivated them to start their businesses. The research emphasizes the complex ways in which agency, mobility, and geopolitics intersect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Recent legislation in Europe and North America encourages women’s participation in corporate boards based on the belief that gender-diversified boards contribute positively to firm performance and increased competitiveness. Contrary to the West, the women’s participation rate in business has been traditionally high in China. The purpose of this paper is to find out whether gender-diverse corporate boards of Chinese automotive firms perform better financially than gender-homogeneous boards.Design/methodology/approach By drawing on data from the Chinese Government and Bloomberg, the authors compare and analyze the differences in financial performance (return on equity, asset growth, sales growth) and risk behavior (debt risk, R&D expenditure) of Chinese automotive firms with and without women on their corporate board.Findings There is significant evidence that firms with women on the board perform better across all three categories, with the exception of return on equity, for which they found no significant differences among the analyzed firms.Practical implications While women’s participation in corporate boards in China is low, the results of this study suggest to policy makers and firms alike to implement measures that support gender-diversified boards in order to take advantage of their potential to increase corporate performance.Originality/value So far, the performance of corporate boards of countries with a traditionally high share of female participation in the workforce has rarely been analyzed. Research focusing on the Chinese automotive industry is new and underrepresented, although China is the largest automotive market worldwide and a key industry of the domestic economy. This investigation contributes to the literature stream on board diversity in as well as to industry-related studies. With the example of the Chinese automotive industry, it provides empirical evidence of better performance of firms with gender-diversified boards within the categories tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's entrepreneurship in China remains an under-researched topic from a marital angle, especially the significant effects of marital status in hypergamy, a type of marriage in which the socioeconomic status of the woman is lower than that of the man. This paper fills this research gap by investigating the relationship between marriage and women's entrepreneurship, particularly different effects of marital status based on the data from the 2017 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), a nationwide survey in mainland China. The findings reveal that women in education-based hypergamy (men's education levels are higher than women's) are less likely to establish a business, whereas women in income-based hypergamy (men's incomes are higher than women's) are more likely to undertake entrepreneurship. In addition, raising more children would strengthen the negative impact of education-based hypergamy on women entrepreneurs. Moreover, we examine the mediation roles of decision-making power and social capital for the underlying mechanisms of education-based hypergamy and income-based hypergamy respectively. Our study contributes to existing literature on the correlation between marriage (hypergamy in particular) and female entrepreneurship in China, meanwhile applies the theories of power-dependence, opportunity cost and bargaining to better comprehend the martial influence on female entrepreneurship, and draws practical implications for developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Female entrepreneurs and CEOs generally face greater challenges in securing funding to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities, yet contextual factors under which such challenges are more likely to arise are less understood. We find that female-led initial public offerings (IPOs) incur greater IPO underpricing, but this effect is moderated by their ownership structure, reflecting different institutional logics in which these firms operate. Specifically, the positive relationship between female CEOs and IPO underpricing is attenuated by venture capitalist ownership, whereas such a relationship is exacerbated by state ownership. Based on a sample of 958 IPOs in China between 2009 and 2015, this study corroborates these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to increase women's entrepreneurial activities and expand the proportion of female entrepreneurs among entire entrepreneurs has been the long-term focus of scholars. For the first time, this article uses the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) and the National Survey on Women's Social Status of China (NSWSS) to study why women's entrepreneurial activities are relatively low in China from the psychological perspective of self-esteem. After controlling for related variables, the regression results show that self-esteem has a positive effect on women's entrepreneurial activities. It indicates that the relatively low entrepreneurial activities of women are partially attributed to their low level of self-esteem. In addition, compared with cognitive ability and 'The Big Five' non-cognitive ability, self-esteem plays a greater role in explaining women's entrepreneurial activities. While using propensity score matching and instrument variable methods to deal with the self-selection bias and endogenous problem of self-esteem, the results corroborate the conclusion. Further analysis indicates that social capital and risk-taking attitudes are two important mechanisms for self-esteem to influence women's entrepreneurial activities. The attempt to incorporate the unique psychological trait of self-esteem into female entrepreneurship sheds light on the interdisciplinary research, and provides a new path for improving women's entrepreneurial activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Viewed as an extremely tempting and complex topic, entrepreneurship is still a young, emerging field of study with a low paradigmatic evolution which arises strong interest among researchers, practitioners and political deciders. The detailed examination of the multiple nature of entrepreneurship has revealed the manifestation of more analysis stages, each of these contributing to a deeper understanding of the field. The focus of the studies was directed mainly to the individual, corporations and nations. The research of entrepreneurship at an individual level focuses on the people's entrepreneurial skills, on their ability to take risks and other personal particularities. The analysis of the corporate level of entrepreneurship emphasizes the companies' potential to develop strategies to ensure their existence in the business field. At national level, entrepreneurship seen as a result of culture, research-development, access to financing and technology can be considered the "engine" of economic growth and poverty reduction. The present study wishes to combine all these aspects to argument the force of entrepreneurship in China, a country with an economy in transition, where, in the last three decades, an assumed economic development was registered. Thus, it is shown that at individual level, the Chinese entrepreneurship focuses on entrepreneurial education that is closely related to individuals' intentions. The corporate level is captured through the evolution of generations of entrepreneurs and their concepts regarding the development strategies of their companies. At national level, the development of entrepreneurship has completed on behalf of the Chinese government' s efforts to ensure an economic friendly environment , a better life standard, a coherent education reform, a change of business attitude and the regional economic opening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to examine the correlation between various types of entrepreneurial motivations and the corporate performance of self-employed micro-businesses operated by women in China. Through the application of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) estimation on a sample of 160 female entrepreneurs, our findings reveal that female entrepreneurs driven by pull motivation prioritize non-financial performance as their primary goal. Conversely, those driven by push motivation exhibit a greater emphasis on financial performance. Furthermore, the cross-group analysis indicates that a high level of motivation among necessity-driven female microbusiness entrepreneurs contributes to achieving a high level of financial performance, whereas a high level of motivation among opportunity-based female microbusiness entrepreneurs does not significantly influence non-financial performance. The implications of these findings for research and policy development pertaining to Chinese female online microbusinesses are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, entrepreneurship remains a non-traditional career for women, but little is known about how young single women may opt for entrepreneurship against the social penalty. This study focuses on single female entrepreneurs and finds them being stigmatised as doing inappropriate jobs and (consequently) staying single. The interviewees responded differently, by (1) coordinating their career and family formation plans to make them compatible, (2) justifying their being single based on their entrepreneurial achievements and (3) compensating for their deviance and using their economic capability to fulfil other family roles. In contrast to the 'androcentric' business model based on carefree agents, female entrepreneurs illustrate different forms of agency to accommodate career aspirations and family duties. Given China's market-oriented reforms, persisting gender beliefs and the socialist legacy, this study illustrates women's fluid and interactive agency in response to the gendered penalty in non-traditional careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guided by feminist politics of reinscription and intersectionality theory, this study theorized how women entrepreneurs from China, Denmark, and the United States depicted their situated struggles to resist simultaneous interlocking oppressions in everyday entrepreneuring based on 40 in-depth interviews. Participants described that they experienced inscription whereby multiple power asymmetries of gender, age, culture, race/ethnicity, and so on emerged and entangled to prescribe social scripts that constrained their entrepreneurial agencies. Simultaneously, participants engaged in reinscription to deconstruct intersectional controls and rework hegemonic scripts in situated entrepreneurial activities. They deployed three resistance strategies: recontextualizing their intersectionalities in different discursive contexts to legitimize and elevate their entrepreneur identities; reformulating their intersectionalities by invoking privileged positions to counterbalance marginalization; and re-envisioning by transcending their intersectional subordination to create opportunities for change. Instead of focusing on pre-existing and fixed power structures and identities in intersectional resistance-control processes, we demonstrate how intersectionalities are (re)constituted in situ through complex and fluid inscription-reinscription dynamics in women's entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many entrepreneurs credit their success to early hardship. Here, we exploit geographical differences in the intensity of China's Great Famine to investigate the effect of hardship during formative years on individual personality and engagement in business entrepreneurship. To exclude factors that might confound the relation between famine intensity and entrepreneurship, we model famine intensity by random weather shocks. We find robust evidence that individuals who experienced more hardship were subsequently more likely to become entrepreneurs (defined broadly as self-employed or business owners). Importantly, the increase in entrepreneurship was at least partly due to conditioning rather than selection. Regarding the behavioral mechanism, hardship was associated with greater risk tolerance among men and women but increased business ownership only among men. The gender differences were possibly due to the intricate relationship between a Chinese social norm--men focus more on market work, while women focus more on domestic work--and interspousal risk pooling associated with occupational choices. Scientifically, these findings contribute to a long-standing debate on whether entrepreneurship is due to nature or nurture, particularly how hardship conditions people to be entrepreneurial. The findings also highlight the importance of gender differences in shaping the effect of early-life experience on life cycle outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Optimum: Journal of Economics & Management Sciences / Ekonomi ve Yönetim Bilimleri Dergisi is the property of Optimum: Journal of Economics & Management Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Polish Journal of Management Studies is the property of Czestochowa University of Technology, Faculty of Management and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Entrepreneurs have become the driving force of China's economy over the past few decades. With a rapid surge in the growth of digital platforms, and the success of China's platforms outside China, the aspiration to be entrepreneurial is recognized and celebrated. Increasingly, women are benefitting from this entrepreneurial fever. However, behind the increasing number of emerging women digital entrepreneurs, is the struggle to gain recognition. Drawing on cases studies of female digital startups, the article investigates some of the dilemmas faced when women strive to develop entrepreneurial identities. The article problematizes distinctions between the entrepreneur in a general sense, the creative entrepreneur, and female creative entrepreneurs. Whereas an entrepreneur in China is often conflated with a business owner, the identity of the creative entrepreneur is more precarious and unstable. The article finds that besides the difficulty to sustain a creative-based entrepreneurial identity, the hyper-competitive and masculinist fields of digital entrepreneurship and technical fields, combined with traditional gender roles and family responsibility, results in a devaluation of female entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Problem: Family-owned businesses provide a large portion of the job opportunities in the Chinese economy. Many successful family-owned businesses in China were established during the initial years of economic reform in the late 1970s and 1980s. Today, as the founders of these companies approach retirement, leadership transition is becoming a pressing issue. Among the various factors involved in family business succession are gender-specific obstacles faced by women who seek to achieve leadership positions. Women entrepreneurs in China are gradually increasing in number, but those who desire to take the helm of family-owned companies face important social and structural challenges in China's male-dominated business culture. The Solution: In this study, we used a qualitative interview approach to learn about the experiences of second-generation women entrepreneurs in Chinese family-owned businesses and to better understand their motivations along with the challenges and opportunities that they face. The findings revealed that the motivations of these women entrepreneurs were centered more on internal "pull" factors (e.g., self-actualization) rather than external "push" factors (e.g., economic pressures). The major challenges that were reported included tense relationships with parents, gender-role conflicts, and alignment issues in relation to their family businesses' established culture. Understanding these factors can help in identifying opportunities for effective human resource development and promoting women's entrepreneurship in the Chinese context. The Stakeholders: Second-generation women entrepreneurs, family businesses in China, women leaders, and human resource development professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the Great Recession, the concern with exclusionary and unethical business practices has led to the growing popularity of social entrepreneurship, which focuses on the creation of social value, not wealth. In this article, I reflect on social entrepreneurship in China, a unique context given the strong communist party leadership and the transition to a market economy. To begin, I discuss the legal and political framework for social entrepreneurship in China, followed by an overview of the sector’s characteristics, including age, size, social issues emphasized, leader characteristics, and the role of women. Next, I provide examples of three social enterprises in China that illustrate the diverse possibilities for this sector as a force for social and institutional change. I conclude with some suggestions for strengthening China’s social enterprise ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine how work-family balance and marketing capabilities are related to Chinese women entrepreneurs' firm performance. Drawing on the family embeddedness perspective, findings show that both factors are positively related to firm performance. Public policy recommendations, implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the role women play in job creation, economic growth and society revitalization, especially in economies undergoing fundamental transformations, issues emerging from women in entrepreneurship have not received adequate attention in academic research. As a result, our understanding of women entrepreneurship in emerging markets as well as in nontraditional industries is even more limited. In this study, I attempt to partially fill the gap by comparing entrepreneurial orientations and venture performance between men and women entrepreneurs in electronics industry in Chinese transition economy. I offer insights gained from statistical analyses based on a survey as well as case study. Results reveal that while women are influenced by the same factors that affect decision making among men and exhibit some similarities, they differ from men in their willingness to take more risks and make bolder moves in pursuit of greater returns and future competitive advantage. In addition, women entrepreneurs outperform their male counterparts. I compare these findings with existing literature and offer suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]