Acceso usuarios
Purpose – Analyze the adherence of women founders and co-founders of startups to Queen Bee Phenomenon (QBP) attitudes.
Theoretical framework – We engaged the three dimensions of the QBP to understand how female founders of startups relate to other women in the work environment and how they deal with male professional culture they are inserted in. We have also engaged gender career literature to underpin cooperative relations between women.
Design/methodology/approach – Our research approach characterizes as qualitative. We employed semi-structured interviews with 30 women founders of startups. We approached the abductive analytical procedure. The authors carried out the coding process independently and we obtained adequate values of reliability in the coding procedures.
Findings – The participants declared to assimilate to male traits. Nevertheless, they did not distance from their gender identity group. Nor did they legitimize the gender hierarchy. Thus, we denied our proposed assumption that women founders of startups exhibit strong QBP adherence.
Research Practical & Social implications – This study contributes to the theoretical advancement of QBP as it analyzes a male context where BQ attitudes are not salient. Simultaneously, we suggest gender bias awareness as a variable that impacts QB attitudes. Although cooperation among women reduces QB attitudes, it does not reduce gender inequality at work. Thus, on behalf of social implications, we reinforce the need for structural changes to achieve gender equality.
Originality/value – The relation between women is little examined in startup contexts and we found no studies that analyzed female founders of startups through the prism of the QBP.
