Why Do Women (Not) Become Entrepreneurs? The Role of Students’ Cognitive Processes and Entrepreneurship Education

Entrepreneurship is one of the most powerful economic forces in modern societies, but women are less likely than men to engage in start-up activities and the causes of this gap are still not entirely clear. Building on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), we propose that being a woman affects entrepreneurial behavior and we claim that this relationship is double serially mediated by cognitive factors (such as entrepreneurial attitude, subjective norms, locus of control, and self-efficacy) and entrepreneurial intentions. By using a longitudinal sample of university students over two years (GUESSS project 2016-2018) and fully testing the TPB, results show that being a woman is significantly and negatively related to entrepreneurial behavior, that there is a significant and negative relationship between being a woman and both attitude and intention, and that the relationship between being a woman and entrepreneurial behavior is double serially mediated right by attitude and intention. In addition, since student entrepreneurs are exposed to resources and support provided by their universities, such as Entrepreneurship Education, and knowing that their entrepreneurial intent and desire are related to students’ prior entrepreneurial exposure through entrepreneurial courses, we show that the effects of gender on cognitive processes and consequent entrepreneurial behaviors are different for those students who followed an EE course or not.