Please use this form to submit your study for inclusion into our database. It will be checked by a member of the Innovation Growth Lab team, who may be in contact to ask for more information. Your email address * Your name * Title * The name of the study Short summary A brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>This study draws on social learning theory and research concerning role model effects to understand how exposure to female entrepreneurial role models influences the development of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, attitudes and intentions among female students. The results presented are from a field experiment including data from 547 students and 98 entrepreneurs. The combination of a mandatory entrepreneurship course, random assignment of students to teams and entrepreneurs, as well as a pre-test/post-test design, allows us to draw robust causal inferences about the impact of female entrepreneurial role models. Exposure to female entrepreneurs was found to particularly boosts the development of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and attitudes towards entrepreneurship of female students. Five mechanisms are explored to explain role model effects as an emergent outcome of a reciprocal relationship between student and entrepreneur. If entrepreneurs signal high levels of supportiveness and interest in the student’s project outcomes, the importance of working with an entrepreneur of the same-gender was found to decrease. In sum, this study provides evidence that role model effects do not only occur by chance, but can be purposefully triggered in an educational setting. Hence, exploiting female role model effects may serve as an effective mechanism to foster female entrepreneurship.</p> <p> </p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2018.209 Links to any published papers and related discussions Authors * Affiliations Academic and other institutes that the authors of the study are members of Delivery partner Organisations involved in delivering the trial, if appropriate Year Year Year199419951996199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026 Month MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec Day Day12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 Journal Journal publishing the study, if available Publication stage * Working Paper Published Ongoing Research Forthcoming Discussion Paper Research theme * Entrepreneurship Innovation Business Growth Country Country or countries where this study took place. Topics What sort of topics does the study cover? Sample attributes Hypotheses / research question How far exposure to same-gender entrepreneurs within the course has a positive impact on students’ entrepreneurial intentions, attitudes towards entrepreneurship, as well as their entrepreneurial self-efficacy? Sample Trial population and sample selection Undergraduate students that took part in a full-semester mandatory entrepreneurship course as part of their major in business administration and students that chose human resource education and management as their main subject. Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description This studies varies the assignment of entrepreneurs (based on their sex) to teams of students and the composition of different sexes in teams to assess the impact of entrepreneur sex on the outcomes and how it varies with the differing team sex compositions. Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method Paper survey, with students self-assessment. Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>Seven outcome measures:<br /> (1) entrepreneurial intentions<br /> (2) attitudes towards entrepreneurship<br /> (3) creative problem solving<br /> (4) marshalling of resources<br /> (5) implementing<br /> (6) managing ambiguity<br /> (7) financial knowledge</p> Results <p>Women students who are matched with women entrepreneurs present higher increases in entrepreneurial self-efficacy and smaller decreases in entrepreneurial intentions, compared to women students matched with men entrepreneurs. Men students present similar patterns when matched with men entrepreneurs, although much weaker. Students’ attitudes towards entrepreneurship do not differ among students matched with same-gender or different-gender entrepreneurs.</p> Intervention costs Not available. Cost benefit ratio Reference Bechthold, L., Rosendahl Huber, L. (2018). 'Yes, I Can! – A Field Experiment on Female Role Model Effects in Entrepreneurship'. Academy of Management Proceedings. Citation for use in academic references
