RESHAPING GENDERED NORMS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP: INCORPORATING GENDER IDENTITY AND ENTREPRENEURIAL PRACTICE

– This paper presents a practice theoretical conception of gender in entrepreneurship, emphasizing the potential of reflexivity and collective agency to reshape gendered norms. While the literature recognises the fluidity of gender and its intersectional nature, it often overlooks how social phenomena are produced and relate to each other. The main aim of this is to show, not just how, gendered norms of entrepreneurial practice inhibit practice (which has been, extensively covered) but how identity and the individualised practice of entrepreneurship, can shift gendered norms of entrepreneurial practice. Drawing upon the theories of Pierre Bourdieu and Margaret Archer, this paper proposes a more integrative approach to identity and gendered norms, embedded within a social realist approach. The author highlights the need for structural renegotiation in entrepreneurship through reflexivity. Given how norms self-naturalise, individual practice of diverse gendered practices in entrepreneurship is not enough to create long-term sustainable change and support for diverse gendered practices. Instead, this paper proposes an integrative approach to identity and gendered norms, emphasizing the potential of individuals to shift structural norms, through collective action. This study suggests that a more balanced understanding of the interplay between context and identity can assist in the design of support for non-traditional gendered practices and provide new insights into how gendered norms impact entrepreneurial activity.


INTRODUCTION
The role of gendered norms in the development of entrepreneurial identities has been extensively covered in the literature (Alvesson et al 2008;Santos et al 2016;Radu-Lefebvre et al 2021).However, the role of identity in reshaping gendered norms in entrepreneurship has been less well-developed.Entrepreneurship research has evolved, from recognizing the masculine norm prevalent in the practice of entrepreneurship, to bringing light to feminine practices (Ahl 2006;Jennings & Brush 2013), to recognizing the fluidity of gender and its intersectional nature (Kondo 1990;Deaux & Stewart 2001).At the same time, there is increasing concern with the entrepreneurial expression of an individual's identity (for example, Radu-Lefebvre et al 2021; Wagenschwanz 2021;Powell & Baker 2014;Fauchart & Gruber 2011;Hoang & Gumeno 2010).The widely held notion within the literature has been that identity is shaped by sociocultural context (Kish-Gephant & Campbell 2015).The field's ontological dualism, between individual and society, leads to an approach that frequently overlooks the way social phenomena are ongoingly produced and relate to each other (Janssens and Steyaert 2019).So, feminine practices are inhibited by social norms of practice in entrepreneurship (De Bruin et al 2006;Ahl & Marlow 2012,) and at the same time, we can identify women entrepreneurs, who manage the discrepancy, between their own feminine identity and expectations of the field (Gherardi 2015;Martin et al 2020).However, what is missing is understanding how feminine practice, at odds with social norms, occur and, ultimately, how, if they can, lead to shifts in the gendered norms of entrepreneurial practice.
It is possible to identify many successful women in entrepreneurship.However, women still lag behind their male counterparts in terms of entrepreneurial activity (Lofstram et al 2014; Marlow & McAdam 2012).Women entrepreneurs are explained away as 'lucid outsiders' (Bourdieu 2001) with little power to change the norms.Stereotypes still proliferate mass media, whether in programs like 'Dragon's Den' and 'The Apprentice'; or sitcoms like 'Silicon Valley,' with the stereotypical nerd or alpha male.In popular media, the predominant character is a male entrepreneur embodying masculine characteristics.Indeed, recent figures illustrate that the gender gap in self-employment in Europe increased in 2019 (Eurostat 2020), and in the US, there was a drop in VC funding to women-led ventures from 2.8% in 2019 to 2.3% in 2020 (Bittner and Lau 2021).Entrepreneurship is a social process defined by the embeddedness and interrelatedness of actors and contexts (Reckwitz, 2002;Schatzki 2002).Cultural beliefs about gender dictate the 'rules of the game' (Ridgeway & Correll 2004).Entrepreneurs engage in socially embedded practice (Keating et al 2014;Johannisson, 2011), embedded within a masculine dominated gendered order of practice (De Bruin et al 2006;Ahl & Marlow 2012).
Theoretically, it is well understood how gender norms guide and impact entrepreneurial practice but not how practice can, if it can, reconfigure norms.Yet, real long-term change requires structural renegotiation.This paper presents a practice theoretical conception of gender in entrepreneurship that aims to promote diverse gender practices across multiple dimensions (for example, how gender is defined or who has access to resources).To achieve this, the paper contrasts the viewpoints of Pierre Bourdieu and Margaret Archer.While the paper does touch on other relevant viewpoints, the main focus is on these two viewpoints, as they provide contrasting lenses.
These two viewpoints extend our understanding of gender, practice, and entrepreneurship by offering a lens to highlight how individual identity is not only inhibited by gendered social norms in entrepreneurship but how it can renegotiate them.On the one hand, Bourdieu's classical account, within which identity is primarily influenced by societal norms.Bourdieu (1977;1990;2001) emphasises masculine domination reinforced by social structures (the aggregate of the relations between all individuals, which in turn regulates behaviour), specifically habitus.On the other, Archer's more recent theoretical positioning explains the increasing variability within society as social norms break down.Archer's (2000;2007;2012) concept of reflexivity emphasises the potential of individuals to shift structural norms through collective action.During periods of morphogenesis, individual practice, as an expression of identity, is not only shaped by sociocultural context but also, shapes the norms of a given context.This paper highlights how individuals can enable more diverse gendered practices through collective action (for example, workers' collectives, virtual communities and ways of organising resources).This approach aligns with shifts in the field towards understanding entrepreneurship through a gendered lens (Ahl 2006;Jennings & Brush 2013) and facilitates the conceptualization of gender from a postfeminist positioning, within which a women's position is not conceived of as exclusion to a dominant masculine norm (Lewis 2014).This paper contributes to the literature on identity and entrepreneurship by providing an account of how identity expressed through collective practice can cause changes in gendered norms in entrepreneurship.While prior research on identity in entrepreneurship has primarily taken an agentic focus (for example, Fauchart and Gruber 2011), this paper focuses on a more integrative approach to identity and society, embedded within a social realist approach (Archer 2012), emphasizing how reflexivity can facilitate structural shifts of gendered norms within entrepreneurship.However, these shifts require more than the individual practice of alternative gendered norms; they necessitate collection promotion.Given the persistence of gendered norms in entrepreneurship, fostering diverse practices to overcome structural inequalities is crucial.
Responding to calls for the application of practice theory in the study of entrepreneurship (Thompson et al 2020;Campbell 2019;Johannisson 2011), this paper contributes to the literature by examining how gendered norms shape entrepreneurial practice, and how gendered norms of practice can be renegotiated.Structural inequalities within entrepreneurship, such as tangible barriers to women's entrepreneurial practice (Marlow & McAdam 2012), are based on a priori alignment of entrepreneurship with a masculine discourse (De Bruin et al 2006;Ahl & Marlow 2012).This paper highlights the impact of periods of morphostasis (masculine domination) and periods of morphogenesis (reflexive imperative) on multiple dimensions of practice, for example, resources, opportunity recognition, and broader conceptions of value created by entrepreneurial activity.I argue that gendered norms, during periods of morphostasis, not only limit diverse gendered practices, they limit creativity, innovation, and opportunity recognition.
Finally, this paper expands on the work of Janssens and Steyaert (2019), which questions the fields ontological dualism, between individual and society, which overlooks the way social phenomena are ongoingly produced.Developing a practice-based theory of diversity can contribute to a better understanding of gender asymmetries within organisations and how they can change.This paper presents a model of how social norms are shifted by individuals collectively organising.Suggestions for further research are made that focus on fostering diverse gendered practices in entrepreneurship.The overall implication of this paper is that identity can and does influence the gendered norms of entrepreneurial practice, but this is not straightforward.Thus, identifying diverse gendered practices and setting up support initiatives may only have short-term impact, given how dominant norms self-naturalise.A focus on individual identity, in itself, does not shift social norms, and more collective, nuanced, and ongoing action is needed to support more diverse gendered practices.This paper begins by discussing the role of gender and entrepreneurship through a practice theoretical lens.I first examine the impact of structural gendered norms on the practice of entrepreneurship, highlighting how these norms often privilege masculine practices.Next, I discuss the role of identity and the increasingly diverse range of gendered practices in entrepreneurship, emphasizing the importance of reflexivity in renegotiating gendered norms in this context.In the latter half of the paper, I present a conceptual model of entrepreneurial gendered practice, drawing on the works of Archer and Bourdieu.The model highlights how individuals have greater agency to renegotiate gendered norms of entrepreneurial practice during periods of morphogenesis through the practice of identity.Finally, I offer implications for future research, emphasizing the need to explore entrepreneurial practice and the complex interplay between gender and identity.

Gender as structured in entrepreneurship
Gender plays a crucial role in structuring the practice of entrepreneurship.Gender is critical to practice as it informs individual expectations, shapes social institutions, and influences social reality.Practice theory seeks to uncover the structure of social life by exploring the 'symbolic structure of knowledge' that shapes agents' behavior (Feldman & Orlikowski 2011;Johannisson 2011;Keating et al 2014;Schatzki 2002).While human actors are knowledgeable agents, they are bounded by 'structural principles,' produced and reproduced by practices (codes, norms), tacit in nature.This 'symbolic structure of knowledge' is the collective, cognitive, and symbolic norms and values (Reckwitz 2002), that organize practice, by enabling specific actions and closing off other actions (Schatzki 1997).With multiple proponents (for example, the work of Bourdieu (1977;1990); Giddens (1979Giddens ( ,1984)); Garfinkel (1967); Butler (1990);and Schatzki (2002)), practice theory belongs to the cultural theoretical school of structuralism.The main objective is to explain and understand human actions by reconstructing the 'symbolic structure of knowledge' that allows and restricts individuals to interpret the world and behave in certain ways (Reckwitz 2002).Gender is not just what one is but also, what one does (West & Zimmerman 1987).
Within society, one's gender informs the expectations of what an individual should do and how society should react.Everything is seen through lenses of gender (Bem 1993), which shape how people are perceived and conceived of; social institutions and social reality itself.
Entrepreneurship, viewed as a community of practice, is defined by implicitly enacted shared norms (Johannisson 2011), sustaining specific gendered norms of practice (Ogbor 2000).
Practices are embodied, materially mediated arrays of human activity centrally organized around shared practical understanding (Schatzki 2001).Thus, individuals carry and enact practices.'Structural principles'(codes, norms) are produced and reproduced by practices (Giddens 1984).Physical and mental activities form a type of background know-how, a way of being and doing (Reckwitz 2002), which socially moderates behaviours, not associated with normative social conceptions of gender (West & Zimmerman 2009).
A practice theoretical lens can illuminate how gender informs the practice of entrepreneurship.Following the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1985), the very idea of a women entrepreneur is outside the norm, and attempts to shift the gendered order of practice are futile, as the normative order is naturalized.Bourdieu's work reveals the relative autonomy of gender domination.Socialization, over time, naturalizes gender domination (Bourdieu 2001).Women (and men) can only be legitimate entrepreneurs when they adopt specific pre-conceived entrepreneurial characteristics (Marlow & McAdam 2012); based on a priori alignment of entrepreneurship with a masculine discourse (De Bruin et al 2006;Ahl & Marlow 2012).It is, thus, unsurprising that women who perceive themselves more alike to men possess higher entrepreneurial intentions (Gupta et al 2009).A masculine discourse is supported by the association of specific characteristics to the practice of entrepreneurship.For example, entrepreneurship is often associated with risk-taking (du Gay 1996;Bruni, Gherardi, & Poggio 2004).Generally, men are often seen as more risk tolerant than women (Kepler & Shane 2007;Marlow & Swail 2014).These structural norms define expectations of practice in entrepreneurship and the role of men and women in entrepreneurship.
Alignment oft requires an a priori definition of characteristics.The stereotype of women being more risk averse than men is built on a singular definition of risk.However, there are different types of risks.For example, a propensity to make risky financial investments does not make an individual more likely to go skydiving (Fine 2017).In entrepreneurship, the focus is often on financial risk (Marlow & Swail 2014).Would women still be labelled more risk averse if one broadens the conception of risk-taking within entrepreneurship?For instance, the risk of sex-based discrimination or risks related to balancing career and personal goals.Even when considering financial risk, the difference in risk tolerance between men and women is marginal when additional measures are used to control for confounding variables (Nelson 2015).The conception of risk, and the measurement of risk, support specific generalisations about men and women.
Generalisations tangibly impact individuals wishing to pursue entrepreneurship.While arguably, entrepreneurs, rather than being more risk tolerant, differ in risk propensity (Sarasvathy 2001;Simon et al 2000), the stereotype remains, and so too, the perception that individuals who display such characteristics make better entrepreneurs.Women, consistently, receive only a small percentage of venture capital funding (Brush, Greene, Balachandra, & Davis, 2014;Ewens & Townsend 2017).Studies have indicated that investors are not biased against women entrepreneurs, per se, but against displays of stereotypical feminine behaviours, regardless of sex (Balachandra et al 2019).Gender stereotypes inform the attributes financiers assign to entrepreneurs, transferring attributes congruent with entrepreneurial success to men and the opposite characteristics to women (Malmstrӧm et al 2017;Malmström et al 2020).This can lead to differences in the way founders are treated.Kanze et al (2018) found that investors asked different types of questions to male and female founders, which impacted funding decisions, to the detriment of female entrepreneurs.Male entrepreneurs were asked promotion focussed questions and women were asked prevention focused questions.Socially gendered subjectivities have real world impact on the practice of entrepreneurship.
Through practice, gendered norms are naturalized.Bourdieu uses the concept of habitus to explain how tacit knowledge informs practice.Habitus being the system of dispositions that mediates individual's actions (Bourdieu 1992).Large scale social inequalities, like gender inequality, are established through the inculcation of power relations upon the disposition of individuals, rather than the product of institutional discrimination (McNay 1999).
Entrepreneurial activity and entrepreneurs are socially expected to embody masculine characteristics (and, by extension be male).So, formal and informal institutions, restrict and marginalise women's businesses (Ojediran and Anderson 2020;Anderson and Ojediran 2022).
Socially two behaviours are witnessed; increased barriers for those wishing to pursue activities outside the role of their perceived gender and lower levels of participation of individuals belonging to the socially rebuked gender category.Thus, the system self-naturalises through practice.Norms around gender inhibit practice, which in turn reaffirms these norms.

Gender identity and renegotiation of practice.
This section considers the interplay between identity and structure and presents an alternative to Bourdieu's viewpoint, as presented above.In the previous section, it was argued that entrepreneurship is structured to encourage masculine practices and inhibit feminine practices.This is counter to the identification of an increasing range of gendered practices in entrepreneurship, that have arisen out of a growing focus on identity in the discipline.An element of this is gender identity, how one makes sense of oneself as a woman, or a man.
Identity can be understood as the way in which we understand ourselves, which is formed and sustained through social interaction (Gioia 1998;19) and plays a critical role throughout the entrepreneurial process (Fauchart & Gruber 2011;Powell & Baker 2017;Radu-Lefebvre et al 2021).Drawing on multiple sources, that are often fragmented and contradictory, gender identity takes multiple forms (Kondo 1990;Deaux & Stewart 2001).As individuals respond to social experiences daily, inconsistencies facilitate constant renegotiation of one's identity.
Gendered identities are decoupled from one's biological sex.People are recognized under the gender category they identify with, which is legitimized through social interactions with others (Westbrook & Schilt 2014).Individual social identity is a product of the role identities that an individual self-categories as.
An entrepreneurial role identity is associated with specific characteristics.Thus, a person who self-categories as such comes to associate their own identity with the characteristics of the role they identify with and, in turn, the gender they identify with.Indeed, as Archer notes, " [t]he social identity of each human being who achieves one is not only made under circumstances which are not of their own choosing, but is partly made out of them" (Archer 2000, 314).
Identity is complex, multidimensional, and fluid (Ahl 2006;Gill & Larson 2014) and is a product of social context.For example, Chinese and UK entrepreneurs have different understandings of the role of an entrepreneur (Bell et al 2019).Identity is formed and developed in response to experience and social interaction (Alvesson et al 2008;Hytti 2005).Our gendered identities are legitimized and formed through social interactions, which are informed by the way individuals categorize us based on the gendered norms of a given context.
Stereotypes inform identity, as they indicate the appropriate practice for a gender within a particular context, following the norms and rules of society (Santos et al 2016).
Literature has primarily focussed on how social context impacts individuals' identity and not on how individuals shape context (Radu-Lefebvre et al 2021; Welter 2011).However, multiple studies have shown that it is not unusual for an entrepreneur's identity to misalign, in some way, with the sociocultural context (Fauchart & Gruber 2011;Battilana et al 2009;Rao et al 2003).Indeed, the presence of women entrepreneurs is contradictory to structural norms.
Women have to manage the discrepancy between their own feminine identity and expectations of the field (Gherardi 2015;Martin et al 2020).Identity misalignment, with sociocultural context, can lead founders to channel the tensions they experience into challenging the rules of the game and using their ventures as vehicles for this change (Foy & Gruber 2022).This gives rise to an entanglement between norms of practice and the individual.At times primacy is given to the structured norms and, at other times, towards the individual.
One should be cautious not to over-socialise the concept of identity.Archer (2000), councils not to under or over privilege human agency.On the one side, it is a dis-service to view the individual as an entirely rational being, acting autonomously.On the other, inaccurate to conclude that every practice is purely a product of socio-structural properties.Archer's social realism distinguishes between the self and the person (which emerge from personal identity) and the agent and the actor (as our social selves).Our social selves occur at the interface of structure and agency.
Ultimately, this is rooted in practice, in our existence in the real world."'I never wholly live in varieties of human space, but am always rooted in natural and non-human space.' (Archer 2007, 128).What is possible is always co-determined by the conjunction of practice of the body, and the world.The body gives us place in the world, and we engage with reality through practice.This is a matter of individual incarnation; removed from society, nature can only be discovered through individual practice (Merleau-Ponty 1974).Despite Descartes's cartesian dualistic conclusions, it is only as embodied beings that we experience the world.It is through practice that knowledge is created, confirmed, or disconfirmed (Archer 2000).
Relating it to gender and entrepreneurship, there is an entanglement and tension between the structure that may inhibit certain gendered practices and individuals trying to express their identities.Thus, in the next section, I consider how more diverse gendered identities are expressed in practice and the role of reflexivity in facilitating the practice of more diverse gendered identities.

The role of reflexivity and progression away from a heteronormative binary
It is well understood how gendered social norms affect entrepreneurial practice, such as how risk impacts who receives entrepreneurial financing.However, despite a greater focus on identity, it is less well understood how social norms shift, specifically through the individual practice of entrepreneurship.Reflexivity is a mechanism that allows for the renegotiation of gendered norms in entrepreneurship through individualised practice.It has been asserted that reflexivity is increasingly a feature of self-identity in the late-modern era (Archer 2012;Giddens 1992).Increasing exposure to others and an ebbing away of traditional social structures have led to a relativizing of cultural and individual practices (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim 2002).Following this, the norms that would traditionally moderate diverse gendered practices become displaced.With contextual continuity's decline, gendered identities become more flexible and varied.For example, innovation gives rise to new communities which are normatively self-regulating (Archer 2012, 306), as there is no historical context to draw upon.In the face of a reflexive imperative (Adams 2006;Archer 2012), concepts like habitus become overly deterministic (Fowler 2003).Applied to entrepreneurship, this would mean the weakening of social norms of practice (habitus), leading to the social acceptance and occurrence of a greater range of gendered practices of entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship is often associated with certain norms and expectations; this is more nuanced in practice.Feminine characteristics in entrepreneurship can be easily identified, for example, communal 'feminine' characteristics like teamwork (Klotz et al 2014).Specific characteristics, classically associated with a particular gender, can be found and positively valued in the alternative gender.For example, men with a higher propensity for teamwork will score higher in terms of subjective well-being and performance (Hmieleski & Sheppard 2019).
Women are seen embracing their own entrepreneurial identity, counter to gendered norms.Lewis (2013) argues that women, in trying to locate an authentic entrepreneurial identity, embrace a feminized discourse of difference.A discourse of difference aims to recognize the value of women's specific skills, attributes, and practices (Fletcher 1994;Metcalfe & Linstead 2003).Women display an agency to embrace their own entrepreneurial identity, even when at odds with the norm (Wilson & Tagg 2010).Though, often, the re-doing of gender is only possible for women with higher status positions (Garcia & Welter 2013).
There has been an increasing recognition that gender is not a fixed concept (Ahl & Marlow 2012).It has been extensively argued that gender is not a dualistic category but a continuum of masculine and feminine, not limited to a specific biological sex (West & Zimmerman 1987;Butler 1990;1993;Bradley 2013).In entrepreneurship, traditionally, the discipline has assumed cis-identification of gender, yet this does not mirror the multiplicity of human experience (Linstead & Pullen 2006).The existence of the category of 'third sex' challenges dualistic gender ascriptions.'Third sex' may signify a mixture of biological sexual features but also individuals who disalign with their biological sex, those undergoing changes to sexual identity, or those displaying gender characteristics not aligned with their biological sex (Bradley 2013).For example, entrepreneurial activity amongst gay men and lesbian women (Marlow, Greene & Coad 2018).The assumption of a heteronormative binary fails to account for the complexity and fluidity of gender.

Entrepreneurs display diverse characteristics, motivations, interests, and life histories.
There is no single model of female entrepreneurship or male entrepreneurship.Gender interacts with other variables of identity (age, disability, sexual orientation, education, race/ethnicity).
There are a growing number of studies that recognize intersectionality in entrepreneurship.For example, challenging assumed heteronormativity in the discipline, research has found little difference between the entrepreneurial activity, of homosexuals and heterosexuals (Marlow & Martinez Dy 2018).Meliou & Mallet's (2022) intersectional approach to the age and gender of self-employed older women noted the heterogeneity of experience of structural and cultural contexts due to differences in class, race, and ethnicity.More nuanced understandings of racialized women entrepreneurs (Knight 2016;Smith-Hunter 2006) have facilitated a greater understanding of the intersectional nature of race and gender.Studies have shown the deep levels of oppression, the product of dominant representation, informing oppressive entrepreneurial practice (Knight 2016).However, intersectional studies have, at times, reproduced dominant representations.A theoretical reliance on black women's experiences as unitary and monolithic (Nash 2008), focussed on marginalised subjects (Ferguson 1998), has led to the reproduction of stereotypes.The study of intersectionality serves to produce and maintain categories of identity and renders these categories fixed (Nash 2011), which is counterintuitive to the theoretical roots of the concept.Caution is required in the categorisation of any group.Nevertheless, intersectionality illustrates that gender is not binary nor isolated from other variables of identity.
Returning to the question, how does individual practice lead to a shift in social norms?
Renegotiation is not straightforward and may not lead to critical deconstruction of norms, habits, and rules.New arrangements in society may not necessarily lead to liberal freedoms (Adkins 2003).For example, cultural differences in different countries lead to variations in women's entrepreneurial intentions (Shinnar et al 2012).Habitus is only ever realized within a specific context or field.Additionally, habitus may continue to work long after the reasons for its emergence have been dislodged (Bourdieu 1990).Reflexivity is an irregular manifestation, dependent on its specific context, so that changes to gender identity are uneven and discontinuous (McNay 1999).Historically, women entrepreneurs have acted in a reflexive manner.Following Bourdieu's concept of the lucid outsider (Bourdieu 2001), individuals who break through the system but remain outsiders.Women entrepreneurs have been known to make use of their outsider status to actively reject norms and innovate (Binns 2008;Garcia & Welter 2011).From creating a family-friendly workplace, to using emotional aspects to engage with, and influence, customers and suppliers.Women 'redo' gender through challenging gendered assumptions, using their status as outsiders to innovate.However, this does not necessarily lead to widespread deconstruction of norms, and lucid outsiders are likely to experience structural barriers.
A reflexive order allows for a broader level of fit, as the rules are renegotiated through individual reflexivity, rather than just an individual's rejection of norms.Individual practice of reflexivity becomes increasingly possible as habitus becomes increasingly redundant."[A]n unprecedented morphogenesis" (Archer 2012) is created by shifts in society, for example, the emergence of new technologies.Morphogenesis refers to the process of structures, generating and changing, within a system.So structures are open to change when society is in a state of morphogenesis.In the context of the current paper, gendered norms may be open to change, and masculine domination may be displaced.The winners are those who match their skills, often driven by their own personal concerns, to the shifting collection of opportunities created (Ibid,64).Social practices are dictated more by an individual's identity than gendered norms.
Critics argue that restraints on agency persist in contemporary societies and that reflexivity tears away subjects from lifeworld contexts (Adams 2006).However, most accounts of reflexivity move towards a hegemony of hybridization, including the presence of habitus (Archer 2012).Entrepreneurs must often "fit in whilst standing out" (De Clercq & Vornov 2009).Entrepreneurs' credibility lies between conforming to industry gatekeepers' requirements and disrupting the status quo.As individuals possess intersecting identities, they may find themselves in a position where they need to engage with incongruent social expectations.For example, older women circumvent age discrimination in the workplace by pursuing self-employment (Meliou & Mallett 2022).Intersectional reflexivity is a product of self-reflexivity and structural norms.
Different individuals, even within the same social group, may possess different levels of reflexivity.Equally, individuals from different backgrounds or different historical periods will also vary.Thus, there is individual and context dependent variability in the degree of reflexive and habitus driven decisions.This leads to a stratified approach, which gives primacy to neither structure, nor agency.This aligns with Elder-Vass (2010), who argues that our actions are the product of habitus and reflexivity.Actions are determined by mental dispositions based upon historical experience, not dissimilar from Bourdieu's argument for the unconscious role of habitus in determining practice.Ultimately, our actions are determined by current dispositions, which are a product of past events (including reflections, experiences, and habitus).Women's current entrepreneurial dispositions will vary, given the variety of possible experiences informed by habitus, shaped by individual factors (age, race, education), and finally, internalised by individual reflection.
Accepting that practice is derived from reflexive deliberation and structure, how are social norms shifted through practice?Within a morphogenetic account, through the interplay between different causal powers and critical reflection, individuals redesign their social environment, including its institutional and ideational configurations.Individuals become agentically effective through this, working with others to bring about transformation and shape society (Archer 2000).For example, the increasing presence of women only networks to address resource gaps.Women only business networks have not always received positive attention, with some noting that they only address individual needs and fail to address structural inequalities (Petrucci 2020).Though, these networks can act as political arenas that advance women's freedom and create change (Villeseche et al 2022).
Following, Elder-Vass's concept of norm circles (2010), more heterogenous social structures are more likely to change.A norm circle is a social grouping or community with specific shared norms and values.Norm circles can vary in size and scope.In societies, characterised by morphostasis, there is a low level of social differentiation and little differentiation in ideas and interests.Power is contained within an interest aligned structural and cultural elite, who contain differentiation and reinforce cultural unification (Archer 2012).
If individuals are all socialised in the same set of norms, the triggers for change will be limited.
Higher levels of social differentiation lead to individuals residing in multiple sets of intersecting norm circles.Subject to the pressures to conform to multiple sets of norm circles, then change is relatively easy.While individuals may be rebuked by one circle, they will be endorsed by another.This leads to an increasing array of roles and opportunities for agents.
People as actors become active role-makers rather than passive role-takers (Archer 2000).To simplify, individuals have a greater range of options with decreasing constraints on their activities and a greater ability to act reflexively.For example, in the study of women digital entrepreneurs, Kelley and McAdam (202) show how women, during the beginning period of career transition, reflected on their values and motives to allow for identity transformation.
Morphogenesis is characterised by increasing numbers of corporate agents.Archer (2020) distinguishes between corporate agents and primary agents.Corporate agents are aware of their aims and actively act and organise to attain their goals.Primary agents go about living their lives the way they are and do not aim to cause any shifts to change the way things are.
Morphogenesis is thus, propelled by the rise of new promotive groups (collectives) (Archer 2000) seeking to challenge the existing hegemonic elite with novel ideas.Incongruity with structural norms can enable collective activism.In their study, of older self-employed women, Meliou and Mallet (2022) show how embracing solidarity enabled entrepreneurial activity, specifically social enterprises, to help others with shared experiences of structural oppression.
Thus, we see more feminized practices occurring when groups come together around shared identities: promotive groups supporting women entrepreneurs or the rise of alternative practices, for example, increasing concern with creating positive impact.
All of the above is only possible through interaction with objective reality.Primacy is given to practice.Human, subjective, causal power (social identity, personal identity) emerge through embodied interplay with the objective world.An individual interested in a specific entrepreneurial opportunity will come to define their identity through personal conversation, thus shaping their own identity.However, whether this is endorsed socially will impact individual concern with an opportunity (Archer 2000, 306).This may explain why change can be slow.Even in the current period, which is often characterised as increasingly morphogenesis, women continue to lag behind.If, for example, we look at European VC funding in 2021, only 1.8% went to all-women founding teams (State of European Tech 2022).
When looking at less experienced founding teams, there is a higher percentage of women getting funding, which could indicate a higher rate of women entering the system.Structural shifts need ongoing re-negotiation, over years, through organised collective action.

A PRACTICE THEORETICAL CONCEPTION OF GENDER.
The practice of reflexivity, enabled by the rise of new promotive groups, causes shifts in entrepreneurial gendered social norms, during periods when historical contingencies are weakened (morphogenesis).Historically, during periods of morphostasis, practice is dictated, to a greater extent, by habitus.The system is disposed to stabilisation, as social norms are selfnaturalising, and re-negotiation is context dependent.For example, in recent years, there have been multiple initiatives to increase the percentage of equity funding assigned to female founders.This has led to slight increases; however, there was a drop in VC funding to womenled ventures in the US from 2.8% in 2019 to 2.3% in 2020 (Bittner and Lau 2021).A system does not exist entirely in a state of morphogenesis or morphostasis: hybridization and shifts between states are possible.Applying the concept of norm circles (Elder-Vass 2010), individuals may belong to circles in states of change and other circles, at the same time, that are in shift.Outcomes of reflexivity will always vary due to the degree of commitment from the individual and the level of structural hindrance present.(Archer 2007).
Figure 1 summarises the gendered norms of entrepreneurial practice in relation to identity and social norms, under conditions of morphogenesis and morphostasis.In practice, as noted above, there will likely be variability in the level of morphogenesis and morphostasis.
The level of importance of habitus is likely to be on a range, rather than binary.There is a historical aspect in the variability of the importance of habitus, resulting in different levels of morphogenesis and morphostasis, which impacts the ability of a system to change form or hold shape (Archer 2012).Both states are likely to co-exist.Socially, contemporary productions of habitus exist alongside more historically dictated habitus.For example, social-cultural expectations of young people leave girls with the paradox of working and not working, being strong and being weak (Griffin et al 2007).Actors must deal with competing social demands and balance the different parts of their lives.They will inhibit different norm circles, which may contain competing demands (Elder-Vass 2010).

Figure 1 Gendered order during Morphostasis and Morphogenesis
Morphostasis results in more significant inhibitions on alternative gendered practices.
The system keeps its shape, and practice is dictated, to a greater extent, by habitus.Further, this system is self-naturalised through a masculine norm that inhibits gendered norms of entrepreneurial practice.Thus, identity is much further removed from actual practice and has a weaker ability to renegotiate habitus.
Periods of morphogenesis are characterised by greater variability in the gendered norms of entrepreneurial practice.During periods of morphogenesis, identity more directly dictates practice.Identity is still constrained by habitus, but a reflexive order allows greater renegotiation of habitus.Identities are formed through daily social interactions, governed by the norms of practice.Identity is always embedded socially through interactions between individuals, society, and culture (Lewis 2015).Individuals perform their gendered identities through practice congruent to and contrary to social expectations.Reflexivity, during times of morphogenesis, enables structural shifts.As individuals act reflexively, they draw upon their reflections to a greater extent than during periods of morphostasis.However, structural shifts require more than individual practice and need promotion at a collective level.Shifts are enabled by groups that are aware of their aims and organise to attain their goals (Archer 2020).
For example, studying Nigerian women migrant entrepreneurs in the UK, working at the margins, their shared otherness facilitated a shared sense of social obligation and enabled their success (James et al 2022).As women migrants, the intersection of their gender, and cultural identity, socially inhibited their entrepreneurial practice.United by their shared 'marginal' identity gave rise to a shared sense of responsibility to support each other.They supported each other's entrepreneurial efforts by sharing knowledge, resources and providing social support.
Ultimately, primacy is given to practice.To shift discursive knowledge requires successful application (Archer 2007).New knowledge needs to be practically applicable; it is not good enough to suggest that women entrepreneurs can succeed; they need to enact success practically.This gives any actor an underlying challenge to supersede traditional practice.
They need to understand the implications of new practice at a structural and practical level, for example, the material culture which supports old instrumental practices.Traditional practice are supported by physical, material objects and things out in the world (e.g., buildings, clothing, rituals).The implication is that new practices, attending with the abstract and the practical, need to be backed up with real world examples.

Promoting diverse gender practice across multiple dimensions
To facilitate ongoing renegotiation means drawing attention to, supporting collectively, and practicing, a diverse range of gendered practices.It is also worth noting that more is needed than just practice; for example, postfeminist communities, while often successful at supporting their participants, do little to disrupt larger scale gender inequalities (Petrucci 2020;Adamson 2017).Following Archer (2020), new promotive groups need to seek to challenge the existing elite.Feminine practices are accepted within a postfeminist community as they occur within an artificially created (often very narrow) field of practice.Thus, diverse practices need to occur within broader contexts, targeting the institutions and practices that enable discrimination and biases based on gender.A radical reflexivity through feminist collaboration is needed, one that moves away from dualisms of insider/outside and either/or towards finding third alternatives that allow more equitable participation (see Long et al 2020).For example, feminist theories can be used to build more equitable organisations that enable emancipatory technology and offer new critical approaches to corporate environmentalism and sustainability (Benschop 2021).
Promoting diverse gender practices also requires the right conditions.Morphogenesis is created by an increased number of corporate agents seeking to challenge the existing hegemonic elite with novel ideas (Archer 2000).Reflexivity becomes increasingly possible as habitus becomes increasingly redundant due to increasing exposure to others and an ebbing away of traditional social structures (Archer 2012).Entrepreneurship as a field of practice offers many opportunities to facilitate and promote reflexive practices, as new technologies lead to the emergence of new industries and new environments (Ahlstrom et al 2020).Digital technologies have led to new ecosystems, business models, and governance structures (Baliaeva et al 2019).These emerging fields provide an arena for gendered reflection, though, without the right interventions, more traditional structures will again become normalised unless displaced.
Gendered norms are enacted on different dimensions of practice.For example, this could be at a more conceptual level, like the way identity or gender are defined, which goes on to impact practice.Alternatively, this could be how a group of activities are structured, for example, in the case of entrepreneurship, resource acquisition, or opportunity recognition.
Breaking down how gender norms impact entrepreneurial practice on multiple dimensions allows for a more explicit and nuanced understanding of the structures that inhibit specific practices.Archer (2020) regards her model of morphogenesis and morphostasis as an explanatory framework to be used in empirical research.While properties of structure, culture, and agency are intertwined, it is possible to analyse and examine the interplay.Following some of the main themes highlighted within this paper and focussing on aspects specifically relevant to entrepreneurship, table 1 postulates the character of different dimensions of practice under different conditions.This is not an exhaustive list; an extreme reading is taken for illustrative purposes.In practice, it is likely to be more nuanced and context dependent.Firstly, under morphostasis and specifically, where masculine norms dictate gendered norms in entrepreneurship.Secondly, under morphogenesis, characterised by a reflexive imperative.
While much work has been done on specific dimensions, there has been less work on other dimensions, and this list is not exhaustive.

Morphogenesis (Reflexive Imperative) Characterisation of Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs are primarily men embodying masculine characteristics, e.g., risk-takers, Entrepreneurs are women and men, acceptance of feminine and masculine characteristics.

Gender
Binary and fixed.Defined by biological sex.Fluid and intersectional.Exploring the different ways practice is gendered in entrepreneurship can illuminate areas for collective focus and promotion of alternative practices.For example, gender stereotypes cause variation in the process of opportunity evaluation (Gupta et al 2013).
Masculine stereotypes negatively influence opportunity evaluation by women due to increasing their anxiety (Zhang et al 2022).Frequently, differing social expectations impose constraints on professional activities (Ely & Padavic 2007), which may limit the range of models of entrepreneurship and, thus, limit opportunity recognition and exploitation.In addition, the dominance of a specific gendered order may limit creativity and innovation.Diversity and flexibility are critical promotors of creativity (Amabile 1988), and culture more broadly impacts the entirety of the creative process (Chiu & Kwan 2010).
Gendered norms impact the resources entrepreneurs can draw upon and access.Research has focussed a lot on financial resources but less on more intangible resources, for example, the use of the home as a place of work.Gender organizes life into separate spheres (Acker 2006).Within a masculine dominated gendered order, the sphere of work is separated from the sphere of home.The spatial distinction between the labours of work and the labours of home problematizes those who blend spheres.For example, those dubbed 'Mumpreneurs' are often not recognised as 'proper' entrepreneurs (Duberley & Carrigan 2013), as the labours of mother and entrepreneur conflict spatially and socially.Despite the household often being the site of entrepreneurial activity (Carter et al 2017), working from home has largely been unaccounted for in the literature (Marlow & Martinez 2018).However, within society, these spheres have become increasingly porous (Wee & Brooks 2012).Some women are drawn to selfemployment to achieve work-family balance, often associated with lower economic aspirations (Shelton 2006;Saridakis et al 2014).Entangling the spheres of work and home affords individuals greater flexibility and additional resources.
Resources are embedded within social practice (Keating et al 2014) and depend on social capital, which is contingent on habitus and gendered ascriptions.For example, when communicating their venture, women entrepreneurs are more likely to focus on specific details rather than the bigger picture: which ultimately negatively impacts the chance of receiving funding (Huang et al 2021).While this can be managed to a certain extent, it is interesting that the writers recommend women 'fixing' their communication style rather than funders trying to control their biases.Gender directly impacts investment outcomes and gendered biased perception of long-term orientation, whereby "men seem to receive some benefit of the doubt" (Ibid, 732).In response, an increasing number of groups have focussed on investing only in women.However, this may cause issues gaining further investment due to negative perceptions of female backed female entrepreneurs (Snellman & Solal 2022).
It is widely held that team dynamics are central to the success of an entrepreneurial endeavour (Forbes, Borchert, Zellmer-Bruhn, & Sapienza, 2006 Finally, entrepreneurial value is often thought of, and measured, in terms of financial or economic measures (Baumol et al 2007).Despite their rarity, research has often focused on 'gazelles' and 'unicorns' (Aldrich & Ruef 2018).This has disadvantaged and marginalized women and other minorities, who often offer significant value beyond financial (Welter 2011).
Entrepreneurship can empower individuals, promote personal growth and development, and improve overall well-being and quality of life (Beath et al. 2013;Haugh and Talwar, 2016;Kapasi & Stirzaker 2023) virtual communities; alternative methods of resource acquisition like crowdfunding, and formal and informal organisations.This research may also consider how other forces may be disrupting collective action, for example, the rise of fake news on social media (Archer 2020a).
Adopting alternative research practices such as narrative approaches, discourse analysis, ethnographic studies, and self-ethnographies will likely assist in understanding the lived experience of individuals.
Following Janssens and Steyaert (2019), research may focus on the way social phenomena are ongoingly produced and relate to each other.For example, looking at how entrepreneurs may act as corporate agents, actively organising and questioning gendered norms or as primary agents aiming to fit in through a processual lens.This could be a rich area of study, considering the context and other factors influencing the active renegotiation of gendered norms.Indeed, context is key to understanding the nature of entrepreneurial identity, and additional research is needed to understand how it is changing (Jones et al 2019).For example, women digital entrepreneurs are shown to engage in reflexive practice and oscillate between identity play and identity work (Kelley & McAdam 2022).In negotiating the intersection of discourses of gender, entrepreneurship, and health and fitness in a digital space, women's identities are shaped by their own reflexive deliberation and the range of gendered norms they encounter.This interplay between morphostasis and morphogenesis, corporate and primary agents, may provide insightful learnings for researchers.Further, this research may help in identifying.
Further work is needed to overcome implicit assumptions in the literature, for example, the dominance of whiteness (Ogbor 2000).Dividing entrepreneurs into fixed binary gender categories renders invisible other variables and facilitates a lack of accountability for the interconnectivity of other social factors.The individual situations of different entrepreneurs are connected to political and social factors, which will be different for different individuals, for example, the way in which gender and class interact (Bourne 2010).This may require moving beyond a feminist standpoint to a post-structuralist feminist stance (Foss 2010, Bruni et al 2005), within which biological categorization is deconstructed.Focussing instead on a socially constructed concept of gender, which varies over time and space.Research is needed that focuses on how complex social constructs interact, manifest, and intersect with gender, for example, class, race/ethnicity, age, disability, and sexual orientation.Recently work has begun to address some of these areas.However, much of this remains on the fringes and is at risk of imposing additional fixed categories, for example, women and black women (Nash 2011).
Future research may focus on how gender is practiced and renegotiated in different fields, particularly how barriers between fields break down.
Research may also draw attention to a broader range of gendered practices.Frequently, the focus is on practices that fit certain predetermined norms rather than the full range of entrepreneurial practices.Concepts like 'value' and 'success' are embodied with a particular meaning.However, these are not universal.For organizations with a purpose (Hollensbe et al 2014), such as social enterprises, principles of value take on a different meaning.Not all entrepreneurship is of positive value to society (Baumol 1996), and there is a need to focus on entrepreneurship's evolving social role and impact (Zahra & Wright 2016;Wiklund et al 2019).
Gendered norms constrain acceptable entrepreneurial practices for any individual.Masculine norms of entrepreneurial practice give primacy to financial value and high-growth (Aldrich & Ruef 2018).In research, a pre-disposition to focus on the amount of growth introduces selection biases (McKelvie & Wicklund 2010).Ventures with low growth are often stigmatised as 'lifestyle' businesses, and the pursuit of high-growth entrepreneurship is consistently associated with masculine behaviours (Gupta et al 2009).
Finally, further work is needed to understand the ongoing structures that inhibit and enable practice.For instance, how material culture inhibits and enables practice, which so far has largely been overlooked in the literature.In recent years, more attention has been paid to understanding the root of inequalities in entrepreneurship.There has been a wealth of research around financing, progressing from identifying inequalities to understanding underlying dynamics, for example, looking at the types of questions women are asked when pursuing VC financing (Kanze et al 2018) Within an entrepreneurial context, the literature can be divided into two dialogs; firstly, how individual identity impacts the practice of entrepreneurship.Identity influences how people establish new ventures and, more broadly, entrepreneurial behaviour ((Foy and Gruber 2022; Fauchart & Gruber 2011; York et al 2016).Secondly, defining role-identities; what precisely is an entrepreneurial identity (Alsos et al 2016; Radu-Lefebvre et al 2021).Entrepreneurs often identify with specific role-related characteristics and behaviours (e.g., inventor, founder, developer) (Mathias & Williams 2018), which influences individuals' interpretation of their own experiences.In addition, gender will influence which specific characteristics and behaviours an individual identifies with.Individuals need to contend with their identity as gendered and the role identity dynamics of being an entrepreneur.Context dependent, entrepreneurial identity encompasses multiple role identities: from innovator, to founder, inventor to developer (Radu-Lefebvre et al 2021).Theoretical and terminological inconsistencies have led to ambiguity around the role of identity in entrepreneurship (Radu-Lefebvre et al 2021; Wagenschwanz 2021), particularly the application of role identity theory and social identity theories.Arguably, it is possible for this paper to reconcile these two dialogs.

Table 1 -
Different dimensions of practice under different gendered social order . In addition, a narrow conception of value impacts what counts as 'success.'Abroader conception of value would challenge what is meant by 'success.'Thislegitimises more diverse entrepreneurial aspirations, i.e., the decision not to grow and prioritise other commitments or other forms of value creation.Gendered assumptions are deeply embedded as they facilitate practice on multiple levels.Reflexive renegotiation broadens However, structural shifts require more than just individual practice and need promotion at a collective level.Morphogenesis is characterised by increasing numbers of corporate agents.Corporate agents are aware of their aims and actively act and organise to attain their goals.Through new promotive groups (collectives), corporate agents seek to challenge existing norms of practice.Overall, individuals practice more diverse gendered practices, and the support of these does not necessarily shift norms and, by extension, does not lead to more sustainable support for others trying to do the same.Ultimately, if we want to ensure sustainable long term changes that enable alternative practices outside the current norm, individuals need to practice collectively, and support needs to mirror this.For example, this may include both formal and informal institutions, organising around shared goals and aims.As previously noted, corporate agents actively act and organise to attain This paper's primary focus has been discussing the relationship between identity and gendered norms of entrepreneurial practice.The main aim is to show not just how gendered norms of entrepreneurial practice inhibit practice (which has been covered extensively) but move from this to understand how identity and the individualised practice of entrepreneurship, can shift gendered norms of entrepreneurial practice.Firstly, the discussion of Bourdieu shows how dominant social norms are entrenched within a system and not easily displaced.Even the occurrence of diverse gendered practices may not lead to structural shifts and do not necessarily, enable another generation, as structural barriers remain.Following Archer, during periods of morphogenesis, identity more directly dictates practice.Reflexivity, during times of morphogenesis, enables structural shifts.theoretically in this paper, may occur in practice and in different contexts.This research may highlight how collective action occurs, the nature of agents (specifically the identification of corporate agents), and the impact of collective action, in different contexts, on gendered norms of entrepreneurial practice.For example, this may include the role of workers' collectives; (Malmström et al 2020)d to entrepreneurial signals from different genders(Malmström et al 2020).Further research could consider other sources of inequality reproducing practices and collectives that support alternative gendered orders, for example, entrepreneurial support structures: accelerators, hackathons, and venture support programs; that by design may reinforce, or enable, specific gendered practices and, by extension, social norms/ habitus.Drawing on research into successful collective action may help identify strategies of support.Further, it may be possible to highlight to identify areas lacking collective action or where collective action may need further support.