Identity and identity work in constructing the woman entrepreneur

In this chapter the authors adopt a feminist perspective to explore the nature of the identity work undertaken by women in the processes of identity formation and activation, and their resultant behavior in an entrepreneurial context. This chapter extends research on identity work in entrepreneurship that questions the androcentrism inherent in current notions of the entrepreneurial identity. The authors argue that there is scope to more fully enrich our theoretical understanding of identity and identity formation and their relationship to entrepreneurial processes, practices and activities, specifically those communicative practices that shape gender identity formation. They employ an ethnographic case study of a female entrepreneur involved in the start-up and growth of her family’s business. The results demonstrate how identity is co-constituted over time in relation to others, and highlight how it is shaped to fit with an entrepreneurial representation that is inextricable from context.