Purpose

This study aims to explore gender performance in entrepreneurial pitching. Understanding pitching as a social practice, the authors argue that pitch content and body gestures contain gender-based norms and practices. The authors focus on early-stage ventures and the hegemonic masculinities and femininities that are performed in entrepreneurial pitches. The main research question is as follows: How is gender performed in entrepreneurial pitching?

Design/methodology/approach

The authors carried out the study with the post-structuralist feminist approach. The authors collected and analyzed nine online pitches with the reflexive thematic method to depict hegemonic masculinities and femininities performed at the pitch.

Findings

The authors found that heroic and breadwinner masculinities are dominant in pitching. Both male and female founders perform hegemonic masculinities. Entrepreneurs are expected to be assertive but empathetic people. Finally, there are connections between what entrepreneurs do and what investors ask, indicating the iteration of gender performance and expectations.

Research limitations/implications

While the online setting helps the authors to collect data during the pandemic, it limits the observation of the place, space and interactions between the judges/investors and the entrepreneurs. As a result, the linguistic and gesture communication of the investors in the pitch was not discussed in full-length in this paper. Also, as the authors observed, people would come to the pitch knowing what they should perform and how they should interact. Therefore, the preparation of the pitch as a study context could provide rich details on how gender norms and stereotypes influence people's interactions and their entrepreneurial identity. Lastly, the study has a methodological limitation. The authors did not include aspects of space in the analysis. It is mainly due to the variety of settings that the pitching sessions that the data set had.

Practical implications

For social practices and policies, the results indicate barriers to finance for women entrepreneurs. Women entrepreneurs are rewarded when they perform entrepreneurial hegemonic masculinities with a touch of emphasized femininities. Eventually, if women entrepreneurs do not perform correctly as investors expect them to, they will face barriers to acquiring finance. It is important to acknowledge how certain gendered biases might be (re)constructed and (re)produced through entrepreneurial activities, in which pitching is one of them.

Social implications

Practitioners could utilize research findings to understand how gender stereotypes exist not only on the pitch stage but also before and after the pitch, such as the choice of business idea and pitch training. In other words, it is necessary to create a more enabling environment for women entrepreneurs, such as customizing the accelerator program so that all business ideas receive relevant support from experts. On a macro level, the study has shown that seemingly gender-equal societies do not practically translate into higher participation of women in entrepreneurship.

Originality/value

For theoretical contributions, the study enhances the discussion that entrepreneurship is gendered; women and men entrepreneurs need to perform certain hegemonic traits to be legitimated as founders. The authors also address various pitching practices that shape pitch performance by including both textual and semiotic data in the study. This study provides social implications on the awareness of gendered norms and the design of entrepreneurial pitching.

中文翻译：

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“你获胜的秘诀是什么？” – 创业推介中的性别表现

目的

本研究旨在探讨创业推介中的性别表现。作者将推销理解为一种社会实践，认为推销内容和身体姿势包含基于性别的规范和实践。作者重点关注早期创业以及创业过程中表现出的霸权男性气质和女性气质。主要研究问题是：性别在创业推介中如何表现？

设计/方法论/途径

作者采用后结构主义女权主义方法进行了这项研究。作者使用反思主题方法收集并分析了九个在线球场，以描绘球场上表现出的霸权男性气质和女性气质。

发现

作者发现，英雄和养家糊口的男性气质在投球中占主导地位。男性和女性创始人都表现出霸道的男性气质。企业家应该是自信但富有同理心的人。最后，企业家的行为和投资者的要求之间存在联系，表明性别表现和期望的迭代。

研究局限性/影响

虽然网络环境有助于作者在疫情期间收集数据，但它限制了对法官/投资者与企业家之间的地点、空间和互动的观察。因此，本文没有详细讨论投资者在比稿中的语言和手势交流。此外，正如作者所观察到的，人们来到球场时知道他们应该做什么以及应该如何互动。因此，准备推介作为研究背景可以提供关于性别规范和刻板印象如何影响人们的互动及其创业身份的丰富细节。最后，该研究存在方法学局限性。作者在分析中没有包括空间方面。这主要是由于数据集的推介会话设置多种多样。

实际影响

对于社会实践和政策，结果表明女性企业家面临融资障碍。当女性企业家表现出企业家霸权的男性气质并强调女性气质时，她们就会得到回报。最终，如果女性企业家的表现未能达到投资者的预期，她们将面临融资障碍。重要的是要认识到某些性别偏见可能如何通过创业活动（重新）构建和（重新）产生，其中推销就是其中之一。

社会影响

从业者可以利用研究结果来了解性别刻板印象不仅存在于推介阶段，而且还存在于推介前后，例如商业理念的选择和推介培训。换句话说，有必要为女性创业者创造一个更加有利的环境，比如定制加速器计划，让所有的商业想法都能得到专家的相关支持。在宏观层面上，研究表明，看似性别平等的社会实际上并没有转化为女性更高的创业参与度。

原创性/价值

在理论贡献方面，该研究加强了关于创业是性别的讨论；女性和男性企业家需要表现出某些霸权特征才能合法地成为创始人。作者还通过在研究中纳入文本和符号数据来解决影响音调表现的各种音调实践。这项研究提供了对性别规范意识和创业宣传设计的社会影响。