Navigating gendered spaces: a feminist phenomenological exploration of women entrepreneurs lived experiences within government support agencies Open Access

Research on women's entrepreneurship has shifted its initial focus from contextualising gender towards the gendering of contexts (Welter, 2020). This research builds upon the latter, investigating the relationship between gendering and Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) as a normative orientation pursued by neoliberal governments (Marlow, 2020; Marlow et al., 2019). Drawing on feminist phenomenology, the current article explores women's lived experiences as they navigate the institutional environment as gendered spaces. Mainly, it concerns women's interactions with Government enterprise support agencies in Ireland, represented by the Local Enterprise Office (LEO). Additionally, it frames “orientation” within the concept of temporality as socially constructed (Lippmann and Aldrich, 2016), as a dimension of the entrepreneurial context often overlooked (Wales et al., 2021; Wood et al., 2021). Therefore, it poses the following research question: How do women entrepreneurs experience the EO as a gendering process within government support agencies?

Gendering refers to institutional and organisational processes that differentiate individuals according to gender by normalising and privileging one to the detriment of others (Calás et al., 2009; Young, 2002). Within this context, this study draws upon feminist phenomenology, which explores how individuals experience the world (Fielding, 2017a). Specifically, critical feminist phenomenology merges the theoretical project of poststructuralism with a phenomenological focus on lived experiences (Oksala, 2016). As such, experiences are embedded in social-historical contexts and lived through bodies (de Beauvoir, 2011; Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962). Accordingly, Phenomenological Orientation (PO) is conceptualised as one's embodied zero-point of orientation (Ahmed, 2006), influenced by time and space as a potentiality of the here and now to unfold into the future (Fielding, 2017b). This perspective underscores the importance of understanding how women entrepreneurs navigate gendered spaces articulated through metaphorical embodied language (Grady, 1997; Lakoff and Johnson, 2003). By examining their interactions with entrepreneurial institutions, this article sheds light on the complexities of their lived experiences and orientations.

EO is a theoretical construct with roots in strategic management which seeks to measure entrepreneurial behaviour (e.g. innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness; Wales et al., 2021). Existing research primarily focuses on EO at the firm level (Randerson, 2016), later extending to the individual level (Clark et al., 2023). However, while a well-established concept, its application within regulatory institutions, such as government support agencies, is still underexplored, particularly concerning gender. This study aims to bridge this gap by examining how EO functions within these support structures and how it might contribute to the gendering of entrepreneurial spaces for women.

This study addresses another significant research gap concerning how agency is exercised within gendered contexts (Welter, 2020). As defined herein, agency is the drive to act even when an individual has no control over a situation (Fielding, 2017a) in which agency is ambiguous and situated (de Beauvoir, 2011). Hence, it is neither innate to individuals nor structurally determined. In this sense, feminist phenomenology seeks to bridge the divide between agency and structure, positing them as co-constituted (Young, 2002).

This research attempts to answer the questions posed by Ahmed (2006): “What difference does it make ‘what’ … [women entrepreneurs] are orientated toward? … If orientation is a matter of how [they] reside in space, then [entrepreneurial] orientation might also be a matter of … how [they] inhabit [entrepreneurial] spaces” (p. 1). Based on current findings, the authors argue that EO functions as a gendering process (Calás et al., 2009; Gherardi and Poggio, 2018; Young, 2002) within entrepreneurial institutions. Women entrepreneurs' orientation towards specific goals and values significantly impacts how they navigate entrepreneurial spaces, as evident in the metaphors they use to articulate their experiences. Understanding what they are oriented toward is crucial because it influences their interactions with government support agencies and whether the resources available suit their needs. Therefore, addressing gendered disparities within entrepreneurship and fostering a more inclusive and supportive entrepreneurial space is essential.

Within this article, gendering is defined as “ongoing [macrosocial] processes of sexual differentiation … [through] microsocial practices” (Calás et al., 2009, p. 559). These processes delineate how society is organised through a gender-hierarchical structure (Gherardi and Poggio, 2018). When applied to the institutional entrepreneurial context, research has acknowledged that rules and regulations generally restrict entrepreneurial activities for women (Balachandra et al., 2019) and individuals who do not conform to normalised hegemonic masculinity (Dean et al., 2019; Marlow, 2020). By highlighting unacknowledged contextual factors (Brush et al., 2009) and normative entrepreneurial discourses (Dean et al., 2019), researchers have demonstrated how entrepreneurship policy (Ahl and Nelson, 2015; Henry et al., 2017), and socio-institutional discourses (Bourne and Calás, 2013; Kubberød et al., 2021; Swail and Marlow, 2018) may be biased against women, even if unintentionally (Brush et al., 2009).

Broader government policies and societal beliefs may also have a detrimental effect on women's entrepreneurship. As an illustration, the idea that women's professional careers cannot come at the expense of their caring responsibilities is still firmly rooted in the normative division of gender roles. Shame is attached to being unable to run a household or adequately care for loved ones (Chasserio et al., 2014). Separating social life into private and public spheres can negatively affect women's entrepreneurship (Bourne and Calás, 2013). The double burden means women do not have as much time as their male counterparts to dedicate to their businesses. Conversely, despite research efforts to acknowledge entrepreneurship embeddedness in the family (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003), the household dimension remains widely overlooked by policymakers (Brush et al., 2009). Moreover, regulations are not designed to challenge rooted beliefs and values, such as gender stereotypes (Balachandra et al., 2019). Quite the opposite, neoliberal ideologies reinforce and reproduce current systems that serve those in power (Marlow, 2020; Marlow et al., 2019).

There is an assumption that the ideal entrepreneur is motivated by profit and high growth aspirations and displays masculine traits, such as assertiveness and high-risk propensity (Ogbor, 2003). Entrepreneurship is described in terms of its economic function: to generate high employment and profitability (Dean et al., 2019). Consequently, women are portrayed as “deficient entrepreneurs” (Marlow et al., 2019, p. 43). The tendency to use men as the benchmark resulted in the underappreciation of women's experiences (Brush et al., 2009). Consequently, entrepreneurial institutions generally encourage women's entrepreneurship but do not go as far as empowering them as entrepreneurial agents (Harrison et al., 2020). Regardless, women may defy normative expectations by engaging in entrepreneurship on their terms (Humbert and Brindley, 2015; Kubberød et al., 2021), which may come with negative consequences (e.g. difficulties in accessing resources; Nelson et al., 2009; e.g. issues of legitimacy; Patterson and Mavin, 2009). They may also learn not to belong as a unique coping strategy to navigate a male-dominated landscape (Kubberød et al., 2021).

Overall, while there is an acknowledgement that Government policies are not producing the desired outcomes, women are blamed for not being committed enough or for lacking an EO (Marlow and McAdam, 2013), where orientation (e.g. opportunity-led, high-risk propensity) is mainly defined from the male perspective (Brush et al., 2009). That is the case even though, under further scrutiny, the underperformance hypothesis (Marlow and McAdam, 2013) has been repeatedly debunked. From this perspective, EO is introduced and discussed in the next section.

From its origins, three dimensions of EO were established that best captured its associated behaviours: innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness. Two more dimensions were later added: competitive aggressiveness and autonomy (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). Research (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996; Wales et al., 2021) suggests a strong positive correlation between EO and firm performance (e.g. profitability, growth, and market share).

As applied to women's entrepreneurship, earlier studies showed that they generally underperformed men in several factors, such as profit, revenue, sales, employment, expansion, and others (Marlow and McAdam, 2013). However, challenging assumptions of women's underperformance, Henry et al. (2016) highlighted that when controlling for contextual variations, gender itself could not explain the differences found. Likewise, Jennings and McDougald (2007) proposed that different dynamics and coping strategies regarding the work-family interface would account for female firms' underperformance. Moreover, Marlow and McAdam (2013) argued that independent of the gender of the owner, and specifically regarding small firms: (1) the majority exhibit marginal growth and performance; (2) most rapid-growth small companies will revert to a “normal” pattern; and (3) high rates of churn are the norm. Therefore, the description of women's business performance is, in fact, a portrait of the average small firm.

The Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation (IEO) was proposed as a derivative construct with a view that a firm's EO is directly associated with the orientation of its founder(s) (or owners, managers, etc.) (Clark et al., 2023). In this case, the three original dimensions are the most commonly measured (Goktan and Gupta, 2013), assuming that IEO strongly correlates to firm performance. Accordingly, research findings are inconclusive, with some pointing out that females have higher IEO scores (e.g. Kundu and Rani, 2004), others go in the opposite direction (e.g. Goktan and Gupta, 2013), while a third group presented no significant differences or showed disparity in some measures but not in others (e.g. Júnior and Gimenez, 2012). These variations can be justified by divergences in sampling (e.g. countries) and items measured.

The Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation (IEO) was proposed as a derivative construct with a view that a firm's EO is directly associated with the orientation of its founder(s) (or owners, managers, etc.) (Clark et al., 2023). In this case, the three original dimensions are the most commonly measured (Goktan and Gupta, 2013), assuming that IEO strongly correlates to firm performance. Accordingly, research findings are inconclusive, with some pointing out that females have higher IEO scores (e.g. Kundu and Rani, 2004), others go in the opposite direction (e.g. Goktan and Gupta, 2013), while a third group presented no significant differences or showed disparity in some measures but not in others (e.g. Júnior and Gimenez, 2012). These variations can be justified by divergences in sampling (e.g. countries) and items measured.

EO studies often apply a quantitative paradigm (Randerson, 2016), overlooking the contextual factors that lead to different orientations (Henry et al., 2016; Jennings and Brush, 2013). Women are generally motivated by a desire to have more autonomy and flexibility (Gherardi, 2015; McGowan et al., 2012; Patterson and Mavin, 2009), with the emergence of their enterprises justified by three primary contextual motivators: career choice and development (Patterson and Mavin, 2009), work-family balance (McGowan et al., 2012), and social/community-motivated (Bakas, 2017; Solesvik et al., 2019). Similarly, growth and success are intrinsically related to women's motivations (Morris et al., 2006), in which profit is only one among other elements. Therefore, success is articulated beyond quantitative measurements, including, for instance, caring for the family (Bakas, 2017) or helping their local communities (Solesvik et al., 2019). Finally, women's risk propensity is strongly determined by their motivation and situation within the family (Humbert and Brindley, 2015). Any analysis of EO should understand that the relationship between women's business performance and temporality is complex. Women's innovativeness, risk-taking, proactiveness, competitiveness, and autonomy are context-dependent, and gender itself is a contextual factor.

To advance research on gendering and EO, this article suggests a novel approach to the EO theoretical construct as a qualitative category applied to the institutional entrepreneurial context to examine orientation from a feminist phenomenological perspective.

Orientation is a central concept within phenomenology and can be understood as the body's zero-point of orientation, particularly regarding how individuals inhabit spaces and how spaces are experienced differently depending on a body's position and direction (Ahmed, 2006). The PO emphasises how lived experiences are shaped by, and shape, temporal experiences (including time and space). These experiences are located within specific historical, social, and cultural contexts. By contrast, EO's quantitative approach seeks to objectively measure entrepreneurial behaviour at the firm level, generally treating time as a static variable (see a comparison in Table 1).

According to Ahmed (2006), if orientation is where one begins, it represents things that are “more and less familiar” (p. 28) to people. Taking “orientation” as a metaphor for personal values, the values anchoring individuals in space/time are also the “objects” they are oriented towards. Continuing this line of thought, being directed towards something (e.g. a goal) means that the body is aligned and extends towards the object of desire. Alignment herein also suggests being “in line” with others facing the same direction. Additionally, being oriented is about familiarity with spaces (Ahmed, 2006). Contrastingly, a lack of habituality, such as when one deviates from a familiar path, can cause disorientation. Nevertheless, getting habituated with new objects or spaces denotes a familiarisation process in which bodies become reoriented. A point of orientation also determines what is here, there, or over there. An individual generally better understands close objects placed within a shared space. At the same time, other things are more difficult to apprehend because of one's perception of distance (or familiarity). Accordingly, for Ahmed (2006), “perception is a way of facing something” (p. 27). Therefore, perception is a stance one takes regarding the lifeworld as it appears to one's consciousness.

Gendering, as a critical concept within feminist phenomenology, explores how individuals are collectively positioned within social structures that may grant more opportunities to some at the expense of others (Young, 2002), which is aligned with the definition presented previously. A feminist phenomenological analysis of gendering aims to understand how women make sense of their lived experiences within gendered contexts.

By juxtaposing the concepts of gendering (Calás et al., 2009; Young, 2002) and PO, this article argues that bodies become more or less entrepreneurial by aligning with a normative EO. In this regard, institutional economic reasoning operates as a corrective device through targeted support programmes (Ahl and Nelson, 2015; Henry et al., 2017), in which women's values and motivations may be seen as deviant. Accordingly, the present research focuses on women's lived experiences of the regulatory institutional environment in Ireland, represented by a Government enterprise support body, as presented next.

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is especially interested in exploring experiences that lead to deep reflection (Smith et al., 2022), such as entrepreneurship (Cope, 2011). It combines phenomenology (i.e. the philosophy of experience), hermeneutics (i.e. the philosophy of interpretation), and idiography (i.e. case-by-case analysis) (Smith et al., 2022), setting it apart from other qualitative methods. By comparing individual cases, IPA can reveal what is particular to a specific group within a specific context and what is unique to each individual in their idiosyncratic relationship with a phenomenon. Therefore, while generalisations in the nomothetic sense do not apply to IPA, contextualised general claims can be made through theoretical transferability (Cope, 2011). Therefore, while the present findings reflect the parochial context (i.e. the LEO network), this is linked to the broader regulatory institutional environment.

This research recognises that language is an amalgamation of cognition and embodiment (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962). To strengthen the credibility and accuracy of the analysis, particularly regarding interpretations of embodied meaning, this study utilises Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) (Lakoff and Johnson, 2003). Accordingly, the metaphors individuals use act as shared cultural meaning units (Smith et al., 2022) through which they interpret their daily experiences (Lakoff and Johnson, 2003). A classic example is the metaphor institutions are the rules of the game (North, 1990), which underpins the prevalent view of entrepreneurship as a competitive game with regulations set by powerful institutions (Sarasvathy et al., 2020). In essence, CMT highlights how individuals understand abstract concepts by relating them to more familiar, concrete ones (Grady, 1997; Lakoff and Johnson, 2003). Conceptual metaphors also represent image schemas (Grady, 1997; Lakoff and Johnson, 2003) in which individuals may project spatial imagery to make sense of abstract concepts or experiences. For instance, it can be said that the institutional landscape is a maze, meaning that the rules of the game are complex and challenging to navigate. Hence, image schemas are mapped into cognitive frames to capture one's embodied experience of the lifeworld.

The LEO was established in 2014 as a first-stop shop for potential, nascent, and existing entrepreneurs in Ireland (DETE - Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment, 2023). According to Government documents (e.g. Local Enterprise Office, 2022), LEO's primary goal is to support (and boost) business capacity, competitiveness, innovation, and job creation, with a strong emphasis on economic development targets.

While disaggregated data by sex is sparse, data from 2012–2015 showed that women represented the majority in LEO's training and mentoring services (57%). However, they received only about a quarter (26%) of the financial support availed during the same period (Fitzsimons and O’Gorman, 2016). This data reveals a significant gender gap in funding access, which can be partly explained by the eligibility criteria for financial support available through the LEO. As read on their website (Local Enterprise Office, no date), “priority must be given to enterprises in the manufacturing or internationally traded services sectors”, excluding retail, personal and professional services as they are “considered to give rise to unacceptable deadweight … and/or displacement”. These may indirectly discriminate against women who represent the majority in the disqualifying groups (e.g. women have 82% participation in consumer and business services, against 71% for men; Fitzsimons and O’Gorman, 2022), even though their participation in exports has been increasing.

To summarise, Irish entrepreneurship policies and, particularly, the supports available through the LEO are examples of how the institutional regulatory environment may adopt the EO as its normative orientation, from which access to resources is conditioned. This article proposes a shift towards PO to understand how women navigate gendered contexts, contending that EO is a gendering process.

Several scholars (Henry et al., 2016; Jennings and Brush, 2013; Marlow et al., 2019) have argued for a move away from comparing women entrepreneurs directly to men. Jennings and Brush (2013) highlighted the limitations of this approach while Henry et al. (2016) advocated for qualitative methodologies that integrate a feminist critique into its methods. This shift is necessary because women entrepreneurs, as Hechavarría et al. (2024) pointed out, are not a “monolithic class”. Their experiences vary greatly, and these nuances deserve in-depth exploration (Henry et al., 2016). Accordingly, women are approached as the experts in entrepreneurship, from which objective knowledge (i.e. theories and meta-discourses) should be scrutinised (Smith et al., 2022).

Within IPA, participants are selected based on their shared experience of a phenomenon, and the sampling is designed to offer insight into a particular experience, “represent[ing] a perspective, rather than a population” (Smith et al., 2022, p. 43). As such, the research applies a purposeful homogenous sampling technique (Cope, 2011; Smith et al., 2022). Participants were chosen based on whether they availed of, or have sought, any support provided by the LEO in the previous 24 months from the interview (see Table 3 in the next section for a descriptive profile of participants). They were recruited mainly from the LEO networking groups for women entrepreneurs in the Dublin region, resulting in a cohort with a diverse demographic profile (e.g. different age groups, nationalities, business stages, etc.), although with a shared experience of the phenomenon explored.

While there is no agreement about the exact number of participants in IPA, there is an increasing consensus towards smaller samples, which is directly related to its commitment to in-depth exploration and idiographic approach (Smith et al., 2022). A Research Ethics Application was submitted to the Research Integrity and Ethics Committee in August 2021 to ensure the research's thorough compliance.

Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, as Smith et al. (2022) recommended due to its potential to gather rich reflexive data. All participants chose to have online interviews conducted on MS Teams and video-recorded with participants' permission. They lasted between 50 and 90 min each. The interviews were phenomenological (e.g. based on experiential accounts; Smith et al., 2022) and divided into four thematic areas: (1) information about the nature of the participants' businesses; (2) their experiences with the LEO; (3) participants' gender and entrepreneurial identity; and (4) general experience within the Irish entrepreneurial space.

Smith et al. (2022) recommended a flexible heuristic framework for data analysis involving several steps adapted to the present research. NVivo (version 14) was used to support data management and develop an audit trail (Vicary et al., 2017). The data analysis process (see Table 2) included detailed case-by-case and line-by-line exploratory noting, particularly how women articulated their experiences through conceptual metaphors. Integrating CMT into the data analysis process was a time-consuming and initially challenging task, although resulting in a methodological contribution. However, IPA's comprehensive analytical process, including descriptive, linguistic and conceptual notes of the transcripts, facilitated a smooth amalgamation. Some of the metaphors commonly used by participants were similarity is alignment (Grady, 1997, p. 283) and social groups are containers (i.e. an extension of the “container” metaphor; Lakoff and Johnson, 2003, p. 38). They illustrated, for instance, their mis/alignment with the LEO and sense of belonging (e.g. insiders or outsiders).

The following steps included a phenomenological reduction and grouping experiential statements into Personal Experiential Themes (PETs). All cases were analysed individually, and just then, a cross-case analysis was carried out, aiming to find converging and diverging PETs. These were clustered into Group Experiential Themes (GETs), as presented in the next section. The last two steps consisted of writing the research findings, giving a full account of the data analysis process, and critically revising theoretical constructs based on research findings. The following sections discuss the current research's findings, followed by final considerations and implications.

If the EO represents a straight line, this can serve as a metaphor for the normative EO, in which the primary goal of entrepreneurship is to achieve profit, growth, and job generation (i.e. firm performance). Entrepreneurs who set similar business goals can be said to be “in line” with the EO. Entrepreneurs who set different goals can be understood to deviate from the EO. However, orientations, entrepreneurial or otherwise, are always situated in contexts. The first GET, Women entrepreneurs make sense of their entrepreneurial endeavours through a Phenomenological Orientation, explores women's alignment or deviation from the EO, highlighting the personal embeddedness that contextualise their orientations. The second GET, Entrepreneurial Orientation mis/alignment defines how women enact their situated agency, examines their experiences when interacting with the LEO regarding alignment or misalignment and how they respond to it. Table 3 presents participants' demographics and the convergences and divergences of PETs discussed in the next subsections. As Rockmann and Vough (2023) suggested, Table 4 presents a detailed list of claims directly quoting participants' extracts, including verbatim not included throughout the article.

The current research findings show that women entrepreneurs adopt specific POs according to what matters to them. For some, it's about business growth (e.g. Fiona and Sophie), while for others, it is about community and women's empowerment (e.g. Ava and Maria). In the third group, it varies from autonomy and flexibility (e.g. Elena, Rachel, and Alice) to recognition and status (e.g. Sarah). However, even when women are aligned with the EO, this is embedded in their lived experiences. Participants articulated their mis/alignment with the EO through metaphors.

Some participants used metaphors such as importance is size (Grady, 1997, p. 291), significant is big (Lakoff and Johnson, 2003, p. 60) and quantity is vertical elevation/more is up (Grady, 1997, p. 285; Lakoff and Johnson, 2003, p. 23), which indicates their alignment with the EO. These generally articulate that something is experienced as important or significant by correlating it to its size. Fiona expressed her mentorship experience through the metaphors above.

By analysing Fiona's image schema, it can be said that she makes sense of her experiences through a vertical axis. She positioned the LEO mentor as higher than her due to his ability to think big. His privileged position gave him a broader horizon perspective (e.g. into the future). Contrastingly, she occupied a space down below, from which she couldn't have the same big vision and in which objects (e.g. her company projections) seemed small and limited (e.g. very in the moment). Therefore, she was in a growth-minded “space”, which she concluded was the opposite of thinking entrepreneurially. Interestingly, she correlated being small (i.e. non-entrepreneurial) with a lack of aggressiveness, implying it was necessary to reach the top. Fiona could not make sense of big words until the mentor “open[ed] a world of possibilities”, helping her to transcend her previous perceived limitations. Hence, Fiona re-directed her business goals, converging to an EO by aligning herself with LEO's goals. In her words, “right now it's like, move forward, move forward, don't stop, keep going. I want … to get it off the ground to make-make it successful”. As applied in the context of this research, Fiona understands that Thinking entrepreneurially is thinking high, big and future-oriented. Consequently, it is unsurprising that being a female entrepreneur felt like “hav[ing] a lot of power”.

In another case, Sophie's business plans were perfectly aligned with LEO's job creation and business growth strategies.

She repeated several times that she and her business partner were oriented towards growth, understood as hiring employees, expanding geographically, and supplying to bigger retailers. Using words such as “obviously” and “natural thing” indicates the inevitability of generating employment in the progression towards her goal. By using the metaphor Hiring employees is a natural thing in the business growth process, she naturalised and reinforced the EO as a normative orientation, in which growth and the pursuit of a hierarchical business model are the only acceptable choices. While also applying the metaphor importance is size (Grady, 1997, p. 291), there seems to be some hesitation when talking about growth. By embodying entrepreneurial uncertainty, her articulation may indicate that her business is progressing towards a potential destination rather than a secured future. Interestingly, by being oriented towards growth (i.e. EO), she also clarifies that a lifestyle business is a diversion from a growth orientation, which could potentially take them away from their planned destination. In this case, the decision to take a growth-oriented path means that a lifestyle business represents the “road not taken”.

When looking at contextual cues that would allow Fiona and Sophie to pursue an EO, they briefly mentioned their family contexts. According to Fiona, “it used to be much more difficult, but [her children] are all teenagers now, so it's fine”. This suggests that she could focus on her entrepreneurial endeavours because her attention did not need to be directed to her children. They are part of her work team, helping her during their school holidays. Consequently, Fiona might have been able to align her orientation to an EO due to a confluence of factors, not only because the LEO mentor advised her. Alternatively, Sophie and her partner (also her husband) are a young immigrant couple living away from their families with no children. While blurring the boundaries between personal and professional life, the business became an extension of their marriage. This was seen as an advantage because Sophie could fully commit to the exigencies of a growing enterprise. Contrastingly, other women may have to divide their time between the company and domestic/caring responsibilities.

Most participants metaphorically positioned men at the top. The metaphor men is up (Lakoff and Johnson, 2003, p. 25), as a variant of control is up (p. 25) and high status is up (p. 24), suggests a relationship between masculine strength and control, which is, in turn, mapped into the idea of social power. Accordingly, Sarah is adamant that within her industry, “you are definitely seeing men going to the top”. Conversely, she places women entrepreneurs “at a much lower level … asking a base-level question”. Hence, by comparison, women is down. As Sarah suggested, the LEO reinforces these ideas: “I find it very interesting that the top positions appear to be all men … They seem to pop up in the photo shoots of the award nights … [while] it tends to be women who we get the emails from”. Sarah's observation suggests a correlation between gender, positionality, and visibility. Women are more likely to be associated with less visible administrative roles, leading to the assumption that they hold less power and importance. This association between gender and visibility was not lost on Sarah: “then there's a whole kind of like periphery of others that we kind of don't really exist very much”. This statement highlights another relevant image schema: men is visible/women is invisible, a variation of existence is visibility (Grady, 1997, p. 284). Hence, by relegating women to the periphery (e.g. down below), the LEO makes them less visible within the entrepreneurial space and, consequently, impairs their visual field. This can negatively affect how women establish a vision for their entrepreneurial endeavours, as articulated by Fiona. It should be noted that Sarah's experiences were not unique; they were shared by others like Alice, Rachel, and Elena. This can be summarised through the metaphor male entrepreneurs are visible at the top, while women occupy the lower, less visible positions.

Other participants (e.g. Maria and Ava) apply a different image schema, suggesting a distinctive lived experience. For instance, Maria is motivated by an ethics of care, which can be understood as a deviation of the vertical axis. In her words: “where the element of compassion starts growing, there are little seeds now that they are spread there”. Accordingly, compassion is a personal value that anchors her business practice. She used the “seed” metaphor to articulate how compassion is a tool that allows human growth. This contrasts with Sophie and Fiona, who linked growth explicitly to the business domain. Moreover, her understanding of growth seems to indicate a lateral expansion (i.e. seeds now that are spread there). Compassion, in this sense, can be seen as a horizontal line that reaches towards others in a relationship of trust and understanding. It is not by chance that Maria stated that becoming an entrepreneur is “a big learning curve and a work in progress”. As such, she articulated her efforts to embrace the entrepreneurial identity as a “big curve”. When this expression is contrasted with the metaphor normal is straight, (Grady, 1997, p. 293), it can be said that to embrace the normative EO she may need to deviate from her initial orientation. Hence, community orientation is a deviant (entrepreneurial) orientation.

Elena, Alice, and Rachel adopted diverse orientations, sometimes aligned with the EO and sometimes deviating from it. For example, Elena's meaning of success varied over time, either focusing on financial achievements or more intangible elements, which can be summarised through the metaphor entrepreneurial success is building a fulfilling life.

Elena defined “little wins” as milestones towards her goals (e.g. financial independence and work-life balance). As such, she applied a combination of quantitative and qualitative targets that indicated her incremental progression in which success was holistically integrated into her professional and personal life. By articulating success as small things, she also challenged the normative discourse that equates it to traditional notions of growth. While valuing autonomy, Rachel shifted her orientation away from the EO after having a child.

Upon delivering her child, Rachel placed a greater value on time flexibility. Her family commitments brought her attention “down” to her baby, slowing her business growth. Her case also supports the argument that an EO is contingent on contextual factors, particularly women's caring responsibilities. Hence, family commitments are a driving factor that shifts one's orientation away from the Entrepreneurial Orientation.

To summarise, this section explored how some women entrepreneurs aligned themselves more or less with the EO according to their PO and other contextual factors such as family responsibilities. Considering that lack of similarity is lack of alignment, it can be observed that some participants experience a sense of misalignment with the EO, as reinforced by the LEO. They may perceive the LEO positioning them at lower levels along the vertical axis due to their gender. Alternatively, they may adopt a different image schema, such as community and female empowerment. This is represented by a horizontal axis through which they make sense of their lived experiences and interactions with the LEO. Finally, other participants may embrace contrasting values regarding success and growth, which conflict with the normative EO.

The findings discussed within this section explore how women enact their situated agency when their POs are aligned or misaligned with the normative EO.

As explored previously, Sophie and Fiona were aligned with the EO. However, due to assumptions that women lack legitimacy (Balachandra et al., 2019; Patterson and Mavin, 2009), they mitigated gendering through gender performativity. Fiona gave a rich description of this when referring to the fear of “being cross-examined” by a perceived man. In her words, “if you're … not sure about your business idea to go and talk with some man about it … can be maybe a bit off-putting” (this “man” can be referred back to the LEO's men at the top).

Fiona felt pressured to present in the way she described above, in which femininity is weakness, and masculinity is strength. These metaphors reinforce the vertical image schema in which men are positioned at the top while women are at the bottom. As such, gender performativity is about “placing herself” higher on this metaphorical scale. Additionally, there seems to be some internal conflict to balance her “friendly” personality, which can be seen as “girly”, with an image of formality and authority. Therefore, gender performativity is a façade and an intentional strategy she employs to embody the upward concept of strength and masculinity. Using the word “façade” may imply that her behaviour can feel unauthentic. Regardless, by owning it, it can be understood that performativity is how she intentionally enacts her situated agency. However, she also recognised the limits of her personal agency: “so you're trying not to feed any of those stereotypes … Erm, well it's just like: Oh I accepted, that's the reality, get used to it, move on”. She admitted that while being aware of her context as gendered, she just accepted it as her reality, implying powerlessness to enact change at the structural level.

Sophie's experience exemplifies the double standard women can face in entrepreneurship. While she struggles with feelings of inadequacy due to gender stereotypes (e.g. downplaying her contributions), her self-described subordinate role to her male partner can also be seen as a form of gender performativity. Nevertheless, her experience reinforces the vertical EO by applying the metaphor femininity is passivity; masculinity is active energy.

When Sophie won an award, she felt she did not deserve it because her partner was the “man of the business” doing all the heavy work while she stayed home. She used the second-person pronoun to indicate that she did not see herself as an entrepreneurial agent within their partnership, resulting in a conflicting experience (i.e. imposter syndrome). She seems to reproduce gender stereotypes in which women's job is less important than men's. She emphasised that her male partner could achieve more by being an active body. Contrastingly, hers is considered enclosed and passive, as if having a female body imposed limits on what she could do. This is directly related to how she experienced her body as lacking physical strength and, therefore, undeserving of going to high places (e.g. winning an award). Furthermore, judging by the use of non-verbal utterances, there is an uncomfortable reflexivity about her supportive role in the company. Accordingly, she positioned herself as doing “basic day-to-day routine … it's like catching whatever was left er [laughter] from him”. Interestingly, while in a complementary role, she prevented things from falling apart as a passive contributor.

Some participants felt their needs or values were misaligned with LEO's offerings. As part of the first group, Sarah experienced a sense of dislocation in the LEO, leading her to engage elsewhere.

For Sarah, the courses, particularly the ones targeted at women entrepreneurs, were brought to the “base level”, reproducing the assumption that woman is down. Her experience was mirrored by others, like Alice, Elena, and Rachel. Their previous professional experience gave them transferable skills entirely unacknowledged by the LEO. Contrastingly, the LEO directed them to beginner's courses, which did not fit their needs [i.e. lack of similarity is lack of alignment] regarding their knowledge level. Therefore, the courses were of no benefit to them (e.g. there wasn't anything I could tap into). Additionally, Sarah articulated her incompatibility with the LEO as a lack of emotional connection (e.g. it didn't resonate), ultimately resulting in her looking for other organisations. It can be concluded that, by offering inadequate support, the LEO keeps women in lower positions from which they cannot see the right path. This is experienced as a gap that disconnected them from the LEO and its supports that could help them to visualise a “great future” for their companies and orient them in the “right direction”. Nevertheless, Sarah and others implied that the right direction is not necessarily the EO but one that recognises their specific needs and contexts.

In the case of Maria and Elena, their values and needs were misaligned with LEO's orientation, resulting in disengagement.

Maria used similar language as Sarah to articulate the “uselessness” of LEO's offerings to her needs, such as “I wasn't matched” and “not a good fit”. She carefully chooses the right words to capture her “felt experience”. Specifically, she referred to “building the right mindset”, indicating a desire to develop an approach aligned with her values, entrepreneurial needs and goals, forming a cohesive whole. Moreover, she was aware that there is more than one type of mindset, which, put in the context of PO, implies that she followed a different orientation than LEO's normative EO. This only confirms the discussion in the previous section, which demonstrates that Maria applied a horizontal image schema to make sense of her entrepreneurial experiences. She also stated that she sought more suitable supports in “other realities”. This latter expression suggests that the LEO may belong to a distinct lifeworld altogether, emphasising her sense of detachment from them as she “naturally veers towards” something else. Since she could not make sense of her interactions with the LEO, disengaging from them (e.g. I decided not to renew) was the alternative left.

Based on the similar experiences of Sarah, Alice, Elena, Rachel, and Maria, it can be concluded that needs and values misalignment are tipping points that lead women entrepreneurs to disengage from the LEO and engage elsewhere. Their actions can be understood as their situated agency, as Alice verbalised: “I can avail of the services or not [laughter]. I can choose which service I want to take or not”. This means that while the participants might not have felt empowered to change LEO structure and Government policies, they still can choose how and whether to engage with it.

While most participants were somehow engaged with the LEO women-only network groups, Ava fully conveyed the sense of “belonging with”.

Through the container metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 2003, p. 38), it can be understood that by paying her membership fee, Ava became part of the women's group. However, her emotional attachment gave her a sense of belonging. Her experience can be summarised through the metaphor the women's network group is a supportive community within the LEO. She conveyed this by employing emotional language that expresses enthusiasm, satisfaction, validation, gratitude, and empowerment. For instance, by characterising their interaction with other women as “really, really, really, really important … crazy quality”, she affirmed the intensity of her experience. Apart from being a stylistic choice, in CMT, repetition signifies that an object (e.g. an event, a feeling, an experience) means more than a standalone word can communicate. Additionally, the group represents a non-judgemental and safe space where she can bring her vulnerable self without feeling dismissed. The group may act as a platform that helps her overcome self-doubt, reinforcing her desire to actively engage with the community and benefit from the opportunities provided by the network. Finally, Ava emphasised the women-only aspect of the network, suggesting this exclusivity contributed significantly to her positive experience.

In conclusion, this section demonstrated how alignment or misalignment with the LEO's normative EO shapes women's situated agency. To reinforce their alignment with the EO, some participants adopted gender performativity, while others found support elsewhere, disengaged from the LEO or limited their interactions to women-only groups. This highlights the complex interplay of gender, agency, and support structures.

This article explores women entrepreneurs' lived experiences in their interactions with the LEO, specifically regarding gendering as institutional processes of gender differentiation, resulting in a system of privilege and disadvantage (Calás et al., 2009; Young, 2002). Figure 1 summarises the main research findings by comparing women's POs (Ahmed, 2006) to the normative EO (Clark et al., 2023; Lumpkin and Dess, 1996; Wales, 2016) reinforced by the LEO (Local Enterprise Office, 2022).

Participants' metaphorical language employs a vertical schema (Grady, 1997; Lakoff and Johnson, 2003) which illuminates how they make sense of their interactions with the LEO. This schema positions men at the top and women at lower positions, reflecting the EO. As such, entrepreneurial motivation is narrowed down to profit-motive measuring success narrowly by firm performance (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996; Marlow and McAdam, 2013; Wales et al., 2021). Although existing research has highlighted the marginalisation of women entrepreneurs (Ahl and Nelson, 2015; Brush et al., 2009; Calás et al., 2009; Henry et al., 2017; Marlow et al., 2019), this study suggests that verticality is a normative orientation from which women navigate the institutional entrepreneurial space. Accordingly, verticality reinforces a masculine hegemonic ideal (Dean et al., 2019; Ogbor, 2003) embedded in the EO (e.g. innovativeness, risk-taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomy; Lumpkin and Dess, 1996) and reinforced by the LEO. Additionally, the findings demonstrate that positioning women at the bottom as an entrepreneurial space they inhabit (Ahmed, 2006), restricts their visibility. This, in turn, may limit their entrepreneurial potential to transcend into the future (Fielding, 2017b). Nevertheless, while verticality is an important representation of a value system, it is not equally applied by all participants; hence, it is not universal.

Traditional measures of EO overlook key aspects of women's entrepreneurial journeys (Marlow and McAdam, 2013). The narrow focus on firm performance fails to capture the influence of personal values and family embeddedness, which are herein suggested as added dimensions of PO. Alternative image schemas (e.g. horizontality, holism) exist that represent the heterogeneity of women's experiences and motivations (Gherardi, 2015; Morris et al., 2006; Patterson and Mavin, 2009; Solesvik et al., 2019) that are not being contemplated at the institutional level. As seen elsewhere (Morris et al., 2006), success is not all about money and profit; it encompasses, for instance, work-life balance and community empowerment. As shown in the findings, some participants verbalised the misalignment of their PO with the normative EO, portraying their paths as facing different directions. In this sense, their PO is seen as divergent within the institutional framework, which needs to be directed to the “right path”. Conversely, converging to an EO might mean abandoning their values, which may elicit anxiety and disorientation. Similarly, the PO acknowledges the household dimension (e.g. caring responsibilities, support network, and time availability and flexibility). There is extensive research on the household dimension regarding women's entrepreneurship (e.g. Bakas, 2017; Humbert and Brindley, 2015; McGowan et al., 2012), but it is still poorly integrated into entrepreneurship policies (Brush et al., 2009). The assumption is that family embeddedness is not generally pertinent to entrepreneurship, reinforcing the separation of private and public spheres (Bourne and Calás, 2013).

This article argues that the EO can be understood as a gendering process (Calás et al., 2009; Gherardi and Poggio, 2018; Young, 2002) within the institutional entrepreneurial context. While traditionally focused on profit and growth that reinforces male hegemony, the EO overlooks the multifaceted orientations of women entrepreneurs. This narrow perspective may inadvertently hinder women's access to vital resources, material or immaterial, that can determine the success of their ventures. While explicitly or implicitly acknowledging their powerlessness to effect structural change, women may enact their situated agency either by purposefully engaging in gender performativity or by disengaging from the LEO. Similarly, Kubberød et al. (2021) pointed out that women intentionally learn not to belong to assert their entrepreneurial legitimacy. These findings highlight the need for a more inclusive framework that considers diverse orientations, challenging the normativity of the EO paradigm. They also have broader theoretical, methodological, and practical implications, summarised next.

The present research investigated how women's PO aligns, or otherwise, with an EO. It borrows the EO construct as applied to firm (Randerson, 2016) and individual levels (Clark et al., 2023) to designate a normative orientation pursued by neoliberal governments (Marlow, 2020; Marlow et al., 2019) that narrowly correlates entrepreneurship to firm performance (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996; Wales et al., 2021). It highlights the complexities and nuances of women's entrepreneurial journey within entrepreneurial institutions, particularly regarding regulatory bodies. By contrast, women's PO emerges from their personal values and other contextual factors, such as family embeddedness (Bakas, 2017; Chasserio et al., 2014; Humbert and Brindley, 2015; McGowan et al., 2012). However, this is unacknowledged by government bodies (Marlow, 2020), which may result in a misalignment between them and women entrepreneurs. Women articulate this divergence regarding their embodied relation with the entrepreneurial space as a gendered space (Welter, 2020). This misalignment has significant implications. It may hinder the creation and development of women's enterprises by limiting their access to resources in which gender is directly or indirectly implicated. Moreover, such an approach also overlooks women's businesses' contribution to society in general, driven by a desire to make a positive impact and foster community cohesion and resilience (Bakas, 2017; Solesvik et al., 2019).

This research offers a novel theoretical perspective on women's entrepreneurship. Firstly, it emphasises temporality as a dimension of context often overlooked in existing research (Lippmann and Aldrich, 2016; Wood et al., 2021). By applying the concept of Phenomenological Orientation (Ahmed, 2006), the article sheds light on how women experience and navigate institutional spaces regarding alignment or misalignment, revealing tensions between them and government agencies. Secondly, the article demonstrated how women entrepreneurs experience the EO as a gendering process (Calás et al., 2009; Gherardi and Poggio, 2018; Young, 2002) that constrains their agency within the entrepreneurial space. However, women are not passive actors in their marginalisation. They co-create the entrepreneurial space by strategically engaging with institutional bodies. They enact their situated agency (de Beauvoir, 2011) by disengaging, seeking alternative supports or through gender performativity (either masculinities or femininities as best suit them).

Regarding methodological implications, the current work applied IPA (Smith et al., 2022) as an underused methodology within women's entrepreneurship, responding to calls for more innovation in this area (Dean et al., 2019; Welter, 2020). Additionally, it used CMT (Grady, 1997; Lakoff and Johnson, 2003) to explore how participants used metaphorical language and image schemas to articulate their embodied relation with the entrepreneurial space. While confirming their marginality (Dean et al., 2019; Marlow, 2020), the present work demonstrated how women employed several spatial metaphors that conveyed their “felt positionality” in relation to the LEO.

This research underscores the inadequacy of current policies and support programmes that solely promote women's entrepreneurship without empowering them (Harrison et al., 2020) by prioritising a narrow economic rationale (Dean et al., 2019). Enterprise support agencies often perpetuate gendered traditional assumptions, failing to challenge ingrained stereotypes that marginalise women (Balachandra et al., 2019; Hechavarría et al., 2024). Disruptive innovations within the regulatory environment are needed to empower women entrepreneurs as decision-makers and agents for social change, fostering genuine inclusivity. This entails recognising the multifaced orientations of women entrepreneurs stemming from their diverse experiences and social positionalities. Accordingly, this article proposes several policy recommendations and key initiatives, as listed below.

1. Adopt inclusive gender language and procedures that cater to diverse orientations, business models, and sizes.

2. Address gender imbalances within their organisational structures, in which women in leadership positions act as role models.

3. Expanding the range of funding and resources available, potentially aligning them with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

4. Move beyond traditional metrics by adopting more comprehensive assessment and evaluation tools. These tools should encompass not only economic quantitative measures, as is the case currently (Local Enterprise Office, 2022), but also qualitative indicators such as well-being, life satisfaction, and social/environmental contributions.

While this article provides valuable insights into women's entrepreneurship and their interactions with government enterprise support agencies, it is not without limitations. The chosen methodology, IPA, and the integration of CMT into its data analysis process have inherent limitations that influence the research outcomes. Firstly, the use of IPA means that the findings are context-specific, drawn from a small, homogenous sample of women entrepreneurs within Western developed economies adopting neoliberal policies. This idiographic approach, focusing on individual experiences, limits the generalisability of the findings. As a result, the insights gained are not representative of the entire population of women entrepreneurs or applicable across different socio-economic settings. This specificity, while providing in-depth understanding, restricts the broader applicability of the results.

Secondly, the reliance on CMT to interpret participants' use of language and metaphors presents challenges. Metaphors are culturally and contextually bound, and their interpretation can be subjective. To mitigate this challenge, the research considered the strength of the metaphor to represent participants' experiential meanings. Additionally, the analysis was cross-referenced with existing literature on conceptual metaphors (e.g. Grady, 1997; Lakoff and Johnson, 2003), grounding the interpretation in established frameworks.

Thirdly, excluding male entrepreneurs from this study limits the comparative understanding of gendered entrepreneurial experiences. This exclusion means that the findings are unidimensional, focusing solely on women's perspectives without exploring how male entrepreneurs might similarly or differently experience and navigate government support structures.

Future research can address these limitations in several ways. For instance, employing a similar research design to explore the POs of male entrepreneurs and their correlation with hegemonic masculinity would provide a comparative dimension. Additionally, incorporating an intersectional approach to examine how factors like race, class, and ethnicity intersect with gender to shape entrepreneurial experiences could offer a more nuanced understanding. Investigating the effectiveness of policy changes informed by the identified relationships between POs and support programs would also be insightful. This could involve longitudinal studies to assess how new policies impact different groups of entrepreneurs over time. Furthermore, exploring women's entrepreneurial journeys through the lens of feminine archetypes could offer a compelling counterpoint to prevailing narratives of the male entrepreneurial hero (Ogbor, 2003). Table 5 suggests some illustrative research questions to address these topics.

In conclusion, while the methodologies used in this study provide deep insights into specific experiences, their limitations must be acknowledged. Addressing these limitations and pursuing new research directions can enrich the understanding of entrepreneurship and guide the implementation of more inclusive and effective support structures for men and women entrepreneurs alike.

This research is funded by the TU Dublin Research Scholarship Programme.