Men continue to dominate the technology industry, with female entrepreneurs in the field continuing to pace far behind. For example, only 2.3% of venture capital funding in 2023 went to women-led startups. But how are women entrepreneurs faring with other necessary resources for their firms? A recent study published in Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal explored whether gender biases exist in regard to the attraction of human capital, which is a critical aspect of tech venture innovation, productivity, and growth.
The research team — Vartuhi Tonoyan of California State University, Fresno; Robert Strohmeyer of University of Mannheim; and Jennifer Jennings of University of Alberta — saw there was limited research on so-called female tokens in male-dominated industry sectors such as technology, and they wanted to understand whether these women are likely to be perceived as competent and innovative as their male counterparts. They focused their study on whether women entrepreneurs are more likely to be discriminated against by jobseekers, and why this might be the case.
Their study consisted of a randomized online experiment involving 777 U.S. job seekers in 2020/2021. Survey respondents were given a fictional online job description from a fictional technology startup designed to mimic posts found on job search platforms such as ZipRecruiter. The posts described the venture’s technology (developing software to counter ransomware attacks), top management team members, work conditions, and available positions.
Some individuals in the survey received job descriptions that featured a male entrepreneur (Michael Woods), while others featured a female entrepreneur (Jessica Woods). Michael and Jessica were given identical industry backgrounds, knowledge, and patented the same invention. The only difference was their gender. The researchers also manipulated the gender composition of three other top management team members (chief technical, financial, and marketing officers).
They found that ventures led by the fictional female entrepreneur were less likely to attract potential employees, even though the Michael- and Jessica-led companies had exactly the same business model and their pedigrees were exactly the same. To understand why, the researchers looked at stereotypes regarding the entrepreneur’s degree of competence, agency, and warmth. In this male-dominated environment, the female leaders were perceived (as the team expected) as less competent, less aggressive, and having fewer leadership qualities. However, the researchers were surprised to also find the women were perceived as less employee-oriented. Social psychological research suggests that women are generally perceived as much warmer and others-oriented than their male colleagues — but not so in this male-dominated setting. The researchers found that this stereotype detracted from the perceived economic viability and employee empowerment potential of the female-led firm.
“What can female technology entrepreneurs do to ameliorate those negative perceptions?” Tonoyan asks. “Because this is a male-dominated environment, we thought that maybe including men in their leadership teams would be likely to decrease some of those negative perceptions. Lo and behold, we were able to find that.”
The researchers’ analysis showed that respondents preferred female-led tech firms with leadership teams that included equal numbers of men and women, at least one man, or all men. The key, Tonoyan says, is to not stack the leadership team with only women, but to form a diverse group to better attract tech talent.
