Principal Topic

Women do more seldom than men start and run businesses. Female start-up rates are particularly low in the Scandinavian countries, even though these are comprehended to be in the lead regarding equality issues. Factors such as role models and attitudes towards entrepreneurship have been shown to affect the number of business start-ups. Media has an important impact regarding creation of attitudes as well as making potential role models visible. The Scandinavians are the most newspaper reading people in the world, which implies that newspapers have a great influence in these countries. This exploratory study aims at investigating which images Norwegian newspapers create of male and female entrepreneurs.

Method

Data was gathered by investigating 117 issues of the leading industry and commerce newspaper in Norway. Articles on entrepreneurs were categorized into three types of entrepreneurs; founders, business owner-directors and investors, and the subjects of the articles were registered. Finally, three articles on female entrepreneurs and three articles on males entrepreneurs were picked out for more thorough analysis, investigating how the (female and male) entrepreneurs were presented in the articles.

Results and Implications

There is an indication of under-report of women entrepreneurs, as only 14.6% of the references to founders, 13.6% of the references to business owner-directors, and 1.8% of the references to investors referred to women. We also found some differences in the subjects mentioned, as well as in how female and male entrepreneurs are presented. We suggest that media contribute to women’s alienation to entrepreneurship, as media’s exposure of entrepreneurs mainly refer to male entrepreneurs with distinct risk taking behavior, heavy involvement in the stock market, and who represent strongly growing firms. Further, we argue that the newspaper’s articles reflects society’s understanding and image of male and female entrepreneurs. Adapting a constructivist understanding of gender we claim that the concept “entrepreneur” is gendered, given a masculine “value.” Many men will also be alienated to media presentations reflecting the hegemonic masculinity of entrepreneurship. If acknowledging that attitudes, norms and role models are important influences to why some persons become entrepreneurs, these results may help us understand the recruitment process of entrepreneurs.

CONTACT: Elisabet Ljunggren, Nordland Research Institute, N-8049 Bodø, Norway; (T) +47 75 51 76 00; (F) +47 75 51 72 34; elisabet.ljunggren@hibo.no