Neither feminist theory, nor extant entrepreneurship theory adequately account for feminist agency and activism within a globalized market economy, in which discourses of entrepreneurship, innovation and economic growth take precedence. This implies challenges of and developments of concepts like enterprise, gender, growth, competition, agency, feminist activism and gender equality, seeking to bridge and combine feminist and entrepreneurship theories in new ways.
This project brings together leading Scandinavian feminist researchers and doctoral students within gender & entrepreneurship studies to meet this challenge. Theory will be developed based on their existing and ongoing research, as well as on several planned new projects. The research methods combine interviews with ethnographic methods (studying women entrepreneurs and their businesses) and discourse analysis (of entrepreneurship and innovation policy and other texts). The groups meet in quarterly working sessions for theory development and joint publications; articles as well as a final 'state-of-the art' book. Conferences and conference tracks inviting Nordic and international scholars will be arranged, ultimately aiming at developing a field which is theoretically in its early stages, but whose object of interest gender and entrepreneurship in a globalized economy - have great implications for the lives of men and women and for the gender order.