Aurelija Novelskaite

Vilnius University, Lithuania

Title: HOW WOMEN GET INVOLVED IN ENTREPRISES: THE TYPOLOGY OF FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS

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Biography

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to present how women entrepreneurs operate in the field of entrepreneurship, considering that the field has its own rules and each player participates in the action with his own capital (Bourdieu, 1984). The social, cultural and economic capital that women possess is explored in terms of individual experiences with a purpose to identify the connection between the individual experiences of female entrepreneurs, social environment and the family with women's professional choices and decisions that determine women's participation in the field of entrepreneurship. The research results are based on the FERM 3D+ model that was constructed as result of the ongoing research on female entrepreneurship and qualitative research conducted in Lithuania (2020-2023). Decisions of women regarding career in entrepreneurship depend on the stage of life when they consider starting an enterprise, also women's age and accumulated social, cultural and economic capital, as well as social relations, norms, values and a series of other socio-economic circumstances. The conditions of when and how women start entrepreneurial activities allow us to identify the types of women entrepreneurs and trends of female entrepreneurial activity that we present in this work. The paper complements other works on women's entrepreneurship with the missing elements of social field research also defines the interaction between women entrepreneurs and other actors in the field of entrepreneurship.