6 Conclusions
At a time when the rate of female entrepreneurship is increasing worldwide, the importance of understanding the contextual aspects of how women build and grow ventures cannot be understated. One such contextual factor is the ability (or lack thereof) for female entrepreneurs to develop social capital in an entrepreneurial ecosystem. To address this issue, our study adopted a social network approach to examine the effects of venture typology, race, ethnicity, and past venture experience on the distribution of social capital and network connectivity of female entrepreneurs in two municipal entrepreneurial ecosystems. Our results create the need for a more nuanced understanding of how individual and venture characteristics play a role in the formation of social capital boundaries. For example, we found that female entrepreneurs engaged in high-growth ventures showed a lower degree of bridging social capital than male entrepreneurs. However, this effect was reversed for female entrepreneurs engaged in lifestyle and survival ventures. This provides for an expanded view of how social capital boundaries exist from across different venture contexts, and suggests that future research on entrepreneurial ecosystems needs to examine the configuration of different venture types more systematically. Therefore, we conclude that a more concerted effort is needed to collect and incorporate network measures more reliably and comprehensibly. These research developments will provide both a more nuanced and rigorous understanding of the role and position of female entrepreneurs in entrepreneurial ecosystems.
