The Global Women’s Entrepreneurship Policy Research Project (Global WEP – www.globalwep.org) is a network of established researchers from over 30 counties. Its goal is to examine, internationally, support policies for women’s entrepreneurship, and to identify explicit or implicit gender biases within public policies. Global WEP also seeks to identify evidence-based good policies or practices that are potentially beneficial to other countries in supporting women’s entrepreneurial activities. Global WEP scholars exchange policy knowledge and share policy data for collective publications and report dissemination. In so doing, Global WEP adds value to extant policy scholarship and informs policy development.
Launched by Professor Colette Henry at the 2014 Diana International Research Symposium in Stockholm, Global WEP is supported by an Executive Team and an International Advisory Panel. Global WEP members comprise researchers from Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America and South America. In addition to hosting by-invitation and open-door workshops, Global WEP has published internal reports, conference papers, book chapters and peer-reviewed academic journals. Global WEP members have also presented at the Diana International Research Conferences, Institute for Small Business & Entrepreneurship Conferences, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the T20 conference and OECD seminars. In 2017, for example, the group published a comparative study of women’s entrepreneurship policy in 13 countries in the International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship (Henry, Orser, Coleman and Foss, 2017). The research was based on analyses of 38 policy/policy-related documents, across Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America. This 13-country study was followed by more in-depth studies, such as that of Coleman, Henry, Orser, Foss and Welter (2019) in the Journal of Small Business Management. Drawing on institutional and feminist theories, this study provides a critique of policies and programmes to increase women entrepreneurs’ access to capital in five economies: Canada, Germany, Ireland, Norway and the USA.
Collectively, the studies reveal that authorship of women’s entrepreneurship policy documents is often anonymous, rarely gender-balanced, and sometimes predominately by men. The analyses suggest that many government policies relegate women entrepreneurs to minority or disadvantaged group status, hence restricting access to resources or overtly privileging traditional men-dominated industry sectors. Few policy documents explicitly state a theoretical foundation or rationale for intervention, or describe evidence-based inputs and outcomes to inform future policy development. Many policies appear to be pilot initiatives or ad hoc. When such policies are considered within their national and institutional contexts, there is often evidence of a mismatch between official policies on the one hand, and practices and funded programmes on the other. Accordingly, many women’s enterprise, small business, and entrepreneurship policies have made only modest contributions to the economic welfare and security of women.
