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The
Igniting the entrepreneurial entrepreneurial
spirit: is the role parents play spirit
gendered?
39
Jodyanne Kirkwood
Department of Management, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand Received 26 September 2005
Revised 11 January 2006
Accepted 9 June 2006
Abstract
Purpose The family has the potential to be a breeding ground for entrepreneurs and may be key
place where the entrepreneurial spirit is ignited. However, to date there has been little empirical
research on how parents may influence their childrens subsequent decision to start a new venture.
Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a qualitative approach to investigate, via
in-depth semi-structured interviews, the experiences of 50 entrepreneurs (25 men and 25 women).
Findings Parents influenced participants decision to create a new venture in a number of ways and
two key gender differences were noted in this parental influence. The first related to how the
participants were influenced differently by their mothers and fathers, with fathers playing the primary
role in the new venture creation decision. The second was differences between how the women and
men participants described the ways they were influenced by their parents. Many women
entrepreneurs looked to their parents for advice, support and encouragement, while some men desired
independence from their parents (primarily fathers) or were trying to compete with them.
Research limitations/implications Limitations exist due to the sample size and the complexity
of motivations for starting a new venture. This study should be followed by more extensive research,
addressing the further research questions and directions that are posed.
Originality/value This empirical study contributes to the literature by enhancing our limited
understanding of how parents influence the decision to start a new venture.
Keywords Family, Parents, Gender, Motivation (psychology)
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
It was recently contended that the family is the oxygen that feeds the fire of
entrepreneurship (Rogoff and Heck, 2003, p. 559). The influence of the family on the
new venture creation process has received limited attention as researchers have not
yet focused their attention on how a new venture might spring from family
relationships (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003, p. 577). While studies have certainly not ignored
the family, as the literature reviewed in this paper will highlight, others believe that the
family is rarely mentioned in entrepreneurship research (Ahl, 2003). Where this
criticism stems from is that the family is seldom discussed from sociological
perspectives that consider how the social environment affects entrepreneurs (Hurley,
1999). This has been referred to as a family embeddedness perspective where people
International Journal of
are part of networks of social relations and do not decide to start a business in a Entrepreneurial Behaviour &
vacuum (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003, p. 577). This study aims to go some way towards Research
Vol. 13 No. 1, 2007
filling this gap by focusing specifically on the role of parents on the new venture pp. 39-59
creation decision. The objective of this paper is to explore how parents influence the q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1355-2554
new venture creation process, with a particular focus on understanding any gender DOI 10.1108/13552550710725174
IJEBR differences between the influence of mothers and fathers, and also between the
13,1 experiences of the women and men participants.
Defining what we understand by the family and entrepreneurs are important tasks
to undertake at the outset. Although defining the family is not straightforward, for the
purposes of this study, the following definition is employed: the family is based on
kinship, marriage and parenthood (Young, 1992). This is the most useful definition
40 given the focus of this study is on the role of parents in the new venture creation
decision. Others researching the family and entrepreneurship have used broader
definitions, such as the household (a residential unit) (Ram, 2001; Young, 1992) or the
extended family that is often the focus of family business studies (Kuratko, 1993).
Definitions of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship have also been wide-ranging but
have primarily focused around three main areas; risk taking (Long, 1983, Stewart et al.,
1996), founding a business (Brockhaus, 1987, Gartner, 1990), and innovation (Carland
et al., 1984, Drucker, 1985, Gartner, 1990, Schumpeter, 1934). While the term
entrepreneur is used throughout this paper for the purposes of consistency it should be
noted that other studies use various definitions of entrepreneurs. This is often a
problem in entrepreneurship studies and there is little that can be done to avoid this
weakness other than to note there may be a lack of direct comparability between
studies due to differences in definitions (Carland et al., 1988). In the current study a
definition of an entrepreneur is used which focuses on creating a new venture. Thus, it
is a person (or a group of people) who creates a new business (for profit) and employs at
least one other paid employee. Further rationale for this definition is presented in the
methodology section.
There have been a number of strands of research within the entrepreneurship field
that discuss the family. While these are not central to the purposes of this study a brief
overview of their focus is important as context to this paper. The first and most
prevalent discussion has been with respect to family businesses (for a recent review,
see Zahra and Sharma, 2004). Within this field, there have been a wide range of studies
including those focusing on business aspirations and goals of family members (Basu,
2004; Tagiuri and Davis, 1992), leadership (Wah, 2004), gender dynamics (Alcorso,
1993) and ethnic family businesses (McGoldrick and Troast, 1993). A further approach
has been to study the demographics of entrepreneurs families and attempt to suggest
causality between family background and entrepreneurship. This strand of research
has been aimed at exploring demographics such as birth order or the social class of the
family (Belcourt, 1987; Hisrich and Brush, 1985). Many of these studies have concluded
the percentage of entrepreneurs who have parents (mainly fathers) who are (or had
been) entrepreneurs is higher than that of the general population (Bird, 1993; Buttner,
1993). Emerging from the observations in these studies there is evidence to suggest
that there is an increased likelihood of an individual becoming interested in
entrepreneurship if there is a family background in business ownership (Mallette and
McGuinness, 1999; Matthews and Moser, 1996; Morrisson, 2000). Thus, the literature
certainly suggests that the family can act as an incubator or is an antecedent to
entrepreneurship (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003; Belcourt, 1988). While there is an absence of
research focusing specifically on the role of the family in terms of venture creation
there is research on the motivation for becoming an entrepreneur (one of which is
family-related motivators) and this literature, focusing on gender comparisons, is
discussed below.
Motivations for becoming an entrepreneur The
The decision to become an entrepreneur is often a complex and multi-faceted entrepreneurial
phenomenon (Marlow and Strange, 1994; Shane et al., 1991; Stevenson, 1990) and has
been the focus of many studies over time (see, for example Hamilton, 1987; Mazzarol spirit
et al., 1999; McClelland and Swail, 2005; Segal et al., 2005; Stanworth and Curran, 1973).
The four most common factors are a desire for independence and autonomy, monetary
motivations, factors related to work, and factors related to the family. 41
A desire for independence and autonomy is often cited as the number one
motivating factor for becoming an entrepreneur (Harrison and Hart, 1993; McDowell,
1995; Shane et al., 1991; Vivarelli, 1991). Few gender differences have been found in
relation to independence as a motivator (Pinfold, 2001; Scott, 1986; Still and Soutar,
2001; Sundin and Holmquist, 1991). Therefore, independence appears to be a universal
motivator for both women and men in deciding to become entrepreneurs. Of the studies
that report gender differences, the degree and direction of gender differences are
inconsistent. This was evidenced in the some cases where women were more motivated
by independence than men (Pinfold, 2001; Scott, 1986; Still and Soutar, 2001), while
other cases found the opposite trend, with male entrepreneurs being more motivated by
independence than women (Marlow, 1997; Sundin and Holmquist, 1991).
It is often assumed that entrepreneurs are highly motivated by money. However,
research has found that entrepreneurs are not always primarily motivated by money
and it is often less important than other factors (Fox, 1998; Kuratko et al., 1997;
McDowell, 1995; Vivarelli, 1991; Watson et al., 2000). Statistically significant gender
differences have been found in some cases (Borooah et al., 1997; DeMartino and
Barbato, 2003; Fischer et al., 1993; Marlow, 1997; Scott, 1986). Similar to findings for
independence-related motivators, where gender differences were found the difference
varied. In some studies, men were more likely than women to report making money or
financial reward as a motivation (Borooah et al., 1997; Cromie, 1987; DeMartino and
Barbato, 2003; Marlow, 1997). Alternatively, Scott (1986) found that women were more
motivated to make more money than men.
Motivations that emerged from experiences at work were also an important
consideration to many entrepreneurs. Two distinct categories of work-related
motivation were found in the literature; those regarding a particular job or employer
and broader career or employment level factors. First, at an individual job level, factors
such as job satisfaction (Honig-Haftel and Marin, 1986), job dissatisfaction (Cromie,
1987), or job instability (Borooah et al., 1997) do motivate people to leave paid
employment and become entrepreneurs. On a higher level than an individual job are
career and employment issues such as career flexibility, advancement and co-career
issues (DeMartino and Barbato, 2003), dissatisfaction with ones career (Cromie, 1987;
Marlow, 1997), difficulty finding employment (Fox, 1998; Hakim, 1989) and
redundancy (Marlow, 1997). Gender differences with respect to work-related
motivating factors were relatively limited across the studies analysed. DeMartino
and Barbato (2003) found women were more motivated than men by co-career issues
and career flexibility. The opposite trend existed for advancement where significantly
more men were motivated by this factor than women (DeMartino and Barbato, 2003).
Borooah et al. (1997) also found statistically significant gender differences in
redundancy and unemployment where more men were motivated by this factor than
women. As per the previous categories of motivators (independence and monetary
IJEBR motivators), the direction of gender differences differed and there were sometimes
13,1 contradictory results. As an example, Cromie (1987) also found career dissatisfaction
to be more important to women than men. However, in the same study no gender
differences were found in job dissatisfaction.
For independence and work-related factors the balance of these studies is largely
against gender differences. For monetary motivations, the balance is somewhat more
42 even. Only in family-related factors do the majority of studies find significant
differences between the motivations of men and women entrepreneurs. There are two
distinct family-related types of motivations for starting a new venture. The first gender
differences relate to issues such as continuing a family tradition (Shane et al., 1991) and
following a role model (Pinfold, 2001). In both cases, men expressed a greater desire
than women to continue a family tradition or to follow a role model (Pinfold, 2001;
Shane et al., 1991). However, following a role model is not necessarily specific to the
family but it is included because the possibility arises that this role model may have
been a family member. The second, and most prevalent family-related motivation,
relates to the combining of waged and domestic labour (Marlow, 1997; Shane et al.,
1991; Still and Soutar, 2001), family-related reasons (Sundin and Holmquist, 1991),
family policies and family obligations (DeMartino and Barbato, 2003), fit with domestic
commitments (Greenfield and Nayak, 1992), and child-rearing (Cromie, 1987). Unlike
other motivations where some gender differences emerged but the direction of results
differed, all of these studies found that women were more motivated by these
family-related factors than men. However, not all of these results are specifically
applicable to the purposes of this study because they primarily refer to managing
children and a partner in parallel with entrepreneurship, and do not describe the
parental influence in the new venture creation decision.

The family and the new venture creation decision

While the literature review focuses on motivations of entrepreneurs using varying
definitions of entrepreneurs, more specific implications of the family on the new
venture creation decision are now discussed. This definition parallels that which was
used for selecting the participants in this study and thus provides the closest
comparison with the current study. There is little doubt that there have been changes
to the composition and roles of families in recent years (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003). One of
the most substantial changes in the composition of the family has been that women are
having children later in life and are having fewer children (Statistics New Zealand,
2005). While these trends are occurring at a societal level, their effect specifically on the
new venture creation decision is potentially wide-ranging in both positive and negative
ways. The decreasing size of families may in fact assist nascent entrepreneurs by
lowering the perception of family risk. Alternatively, negative influences may also
emerge such as fewer start-up resources available from the family and this might be a
barrier to entering business (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003). Alongside these changes in
family composition and womens participation in the labour market, shifts in
traditional roles within the family have occurred. Another trend that has had an impact
on the family is that there are now greater numbers of women in the workforce than
was the case historically. Womens labour participation rates have increased
significantly worldwide over time (Moore and Buttner, 1997) and these rising levels of
womens participation in the workforce has meant changes to family life (Malveaux,
1990). The impact of this trend is that this may increase the numbers of women who The
decide to create their own new venture (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003). Certainly, the recent entrepreneurial
growth in the numbers of women entrepreneurs worldwide supports this proposition
(Minniti et al., 2005). spirit
Assumptions that a womans role is to take primary responsibility for the care of the
family are historical (Brush, 1990; Wetherell, 1977) and learned from infancy (Cromie
and Hayes, 1988). While gendered role stereotypes may have lessened over time, with 43
more sharing of household duties and role reversals, others suggest the roles women
and men play in the family have not changed substantially (Ufuk and Ozgen, 2001).
Traditionally, women are thought of as carers (Gilligan, 1982) and tended to be more
involved in child-rearing (Mallette and McGuinness, 1999) and socialisation of children
than men (Cromie and Hayes, 1988). However, parents are now having less of a role in
socialising their children than in the past (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003). This may be of
concern, as some suggest that socialisation as children and, later, at work may explain
the origins and motivations for entrepreneurship (Stanworth et al., 1989). Thus, less
interaction between entrepreneurial parents and their children may reduce the
preparation and motivation and result in a decrease in the numbers of children
following their parents into entrepreneurship (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003). These potential
outcomes of changes within the family are important to consider as context for the
current study.

Methodology
As noted in the introduction, an entrepreneur is defined in this study as someone who
starts a new business venture. An entrepreneur is therefore a person (or a group of
people) who creates a new business (for profit) and employs at least one other paid
person. The rationale for this definition relates to varying levels of risk required in each
of the different ownership scenarios. People who have founded their own business and
are responsible for employees have significantly more at stake than sole traders for
example. In support of this distinction between founding a new venture and other
forms of ownership Gartner (1990) found purchasing an existing business to be one of
the lowest scoring factors in a Delphi study exploring definitions of an entrepreneur.
Thus, the definition used in the current study excludes those who purchased an
existing business, franchisees, or sole traders. It must be noted that it excludes those
who have inherited a business from their parents but includes entrepreneurs who may
have started a new venture with a family member (in this study, none had started
businesses with parents but some had done so with siblings).
Because this studys intention was to investigate how participants believed their
parents influenced their new venture creation decision a qualitative research method
was deemed most appropriate. Some support the use of qualitative approaches when
researching the family and its role in entrepreneurship (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003; Ram,
2001) and note that they are especially useful within entrepreneurship research areas
that are not well advanced theoretically (Paulin et al., 1982). There are various methods
for collecting qualitative data but interviews, in their various forms, are the most
widely used method (Fontana and Frey, 1994; King, 1994). For the purposes of this
research interviews were the best option to understand the reality of entrepreneurs
themselves. The choice of semi-structured interviews is also justified given the limited
amount of the prior research on the family and entrepreneurship. In addition, the
IJEBR complex decision to become an entrepreneur lends itself to interviews which allow for
13,1 full expression of the interrelationships between the many variables that can impact
on one persons ultimate decision to start a business (Stevenson, 1990, p. 442).

The sample
This paper reports on the qualitative phase of a multiple method study. The
44 quantitative phase of the study involved a mail survey of 932 business owners in New
Zealand (66 were returned undeliverable). The 381 replies received represented a 44 per
cent response rate that is respectable given that response rates for small business mail
surveys average around 30 per cent (Dennis, 2003). Of these respondents, 289 met the
definition of an entrepreneur used in this study. Individuals who started their
businesses after 1993 were chosen to maximise recall of their motivations for starting a
new venture. The retrospective nature of this study parallels similar research on
entrepreneurs (Carter and Cannon, 1992). In such cases, researchers often only have
retrospective accounts and there are potential issues with accuracy of recall (Mangione,
1995; Reynolds, 1993). It is expected that the memory of events occurring earlier than
1993 may be difficult to recall although similar research by Hamilton (1987) suggests
that relying on the recall of founders from 10-15 years prior was a weakness of his
study but not a major defect.
A total of 159 of the 289 respondents indicated (from a question on the survey) they
would like to participate further in the study by way of a face-to-face interview or be
sent another survey in the future. Self-selection bias must be considered a potential
weakness of the sample selection method but given the lack of publicly available
databases of business owners in New Zealand this method was somewhat unavoidable.
Because significantly more people self-selected than could be interviewed a selection
process ensued that was based on minimising travel expenses. A total of 50
entrepreneurs in New Zealand were interviewed (25 women and 25 men) in phase two
of the study. All participants were interviewed face-to-face by the author. While the
sample was not matched in a statistical sense care was taken to ensure that mens
and womens businesses were broadly comparable in terms of three demographics:
industry sector, annual sales volume and employee numbers. Table I shows an
overview of these and other sample demographics as well as the location of the
interviews.
The questions were designed to gauge individual opinions and therefore were broad
and open-ended (see appendix for questions relating to the family). The interviews
ranged from 45 minutes to over three hours, although the entire interview was not
focused on the role of parents in the new venture creation process. Most interviews
lasted approximately 90 minutes and all were tape recorded and transcribed. While
tape recorders can be considered intrusive to a research setting (Stainback and
Stainback, 1988) they are essential for providing a record of the interview and, more
importantly, are necessary for coding the interview material (Curran and Blackburn,
2001).
The QSR NUD *IST Vivo (Nvivo) software package was used for data management
(Richards, 2000). Using Nvivo, transcripts were coded according to themes and
analysed using a constant comparison approach (Glaser, 1992). Data were coded by
paragraph and sentence as proposed by Strauss and Corbin (1990), and the entire
document viewed to see if (and how) it differed from the previous transcript. Code notes
 The
Women n 25 Men n 25
entrepreneurial
Ethnic origin spirit
Pakeha/European 23 23
Maori 1 1
Other 1 1
45
Age
Under 35 3 0
35-39 6 5
40-44 3 6
45-49 5 5
50 8 9

Industry
Service 15 13
Manufacturing 3 4
Retail 1 1
Other 2 5
More than one type (i.e. service and manufacturing) 4 2

Annual sales NZD (1NZD 0:38 GBP)

Under $100,000 3 5
100-500,000 8 5
500,000-1 million 8 9
Over 1 million 5 5
Undisclosed 1 1

Employees: (mean)
Part time 4 1.6
Full time 5 6.1

Location
Auckland 17 10
Wellington 4 4
Christchurch 2 9
Dunedin 1 2 Table I.
Invercargill 1 0 Sample demographics

were written from the open coding procedure and these were initial thoughts about
themes and possible relationships or issues that appeared important to the
participants. Analysis began by coding the transcripts and from this categories
emerged (nodes in Nvivo). A total of 2,184 passages were coded into the 38 node
categories where a passage may be a few words or a number of paragraphs of text.

Trustworthiness of the research

Reliable methods and valid conclusions are essential to any good piece of research,
whether qualitative or quantitative (Silverman, 2000). In this study, the issue of
credibility and transferability was addressed in three main ways using convergent
interviews and native categories, selecting quotes and contrary cases, and in the use of
tabulations. Native categories are those that the participants use themselves rather
IJEBR than the researcher interpreting their answers. The evolving interview schedule helped
13,1 to ensure that the questions were relevant to the participants. Data reduction in
qualitative research is a necessary task. Given that there were 50 participants, there
was a need for selecting portions of transcripts to illustrate the views of the
participants. Some qualitative researchers avoid numbers altogether but I tabulated
participants own categories as suggested by Silverman (2000).
46 The issue of dependability was also addressed in three ways. The primary method
for establishing dependability in this study was the use of inter-coder agreement (King,
1994). A postgraduate student who was unfamiliar with the research was asked to code
five interview transcripts using seven of the codes (including four that involved the
family parents, siblings, children, domestic partner). The additional coder was in
agreement with my codes in 67 cases and in disagreement five times. For a person
unfamiliar with the material this result was deemed adequate. Additionally, field notes
were also taken to supplement the recorded interviews (Silverman, 2000; Stainback and
Stainback, 1988). These field notes, typically amounting to two to three pages per
participant, were written up as soon as possible after the interview.

Findings
Table II illustrates some information about the participants and their families. It
indicates that parents were described by 26 of the 50 participants as important in their
decision to start a new venture (16 women and ten men). These participants were
primarily those with parents who also had owned businesses (13 women and eight
men). Thus, it can be suggested that parents who owned businesses certainly may
have played a role in their childrens decision to become an entrepreneur. In a further
support of this observation, it was found that of the participants who said they were
not influenced by their parents the majority had never owned a business (only five had
owned a business). This parallels the results of prior literature where a family history
of business ownership is linked to the incidence of entrepreneurship. However, while
these demographics indicate a link between these two factors we know little about the
nature of this influence.
The objective of this section is to move beyond these basic observations and
describe, in as much detail as possible how parents were seen by the participants as
influencing their decision to start a new venture. As noted, 16 women and ten men
participants said they were in some way influenced by their parents in this decision.

Women n 25 Men n 25

Marital status (married or living with partner) 17 22

Number of children (mean) 1.44 2.28
Number of children living at home (mean) 0.80 1.64
Siblings (mean) 3.16 2.20
Brothers (mean) 1.88 1.08
Sisters (mean) 1.28 1.08
Table II. Parents previously owned business 16 14
Family related Motivated by parents 16 10
demographics Of these, parents had owned businesses 13 8
While this counting approach is not the primary objective of this study, it may direct The
attention to a possible gender difference between how women and men participants entrepreneurial
were influenced by their parents. The following section is structured around the
participants upbringing, and then specifically describes the influence of fathers and spirit
mothers with gender differences between men and women participants pointed out.
Excerpts from the transcripts are presented here verbatim, and participants were
named W1-W25 and M1-M25 (where W refers to women, and M refers to men). 47
Upbringing
Many of the participants who said they were influenced by their parents spoke quite
specifically about how they thought their upbringing in general had on their decision
to start a new venture. The following three quotes from women participants illustrate
that growing up with entrepreneurial parents meant they believed they saw things
differently from other people:
I was thinking about the reasons you are doing this [study] and its definitely got to be family.
We think its normal, my brother and I, to have a business (W6).
Daddy had about two or three businesses and he was an inventor. . . my grandfather on my
fathers side had the biggest building firm in London so that was quite normal to have your
own business. Well, why wouldnt you have your own business? (W3).
Its very much in your upbringing really, you dont do things as everyone else does. I wasnt
encouraged to get a job at a supermarket like all my friends did. I was always encouraged to
think outside the square, think differently, always our conversation at the dinner table was
companies figures, what company was doing what (W9).
All three women talked of their upbringing as being different to their peers whose
parents did not have businesses. In relation to their subsequent motivations for
starting a new venture their family background gave them an early view of doing
things differently than children whose parents did not have their own businesses. A
number of the men participants, in a similar way to these women, also described how
they were influenced by their parents experiences in business. The following quotes
from two of the male participants outline their upbringing in entrepreneurial families:
The reason why I wanted to work for myself is, I guess, I had that innate sense of being self
employed. Most of my family are self employed (M5).
Absolutely [parents influenced his decision to become an entrepreneur]. Yeah, it is an outlook
on life, and my kids are going to be the same . . . they will be as independent as hell (M22).
In these examples, both men described the positive influence of growing up in an
entrepreneurial family on their later decision to start a new venture. Early exposure to
their parents business ownership played a key role in many of the participants
decisions to become entrepreneurs. As the examples illustrated here suggest many
participants were able to trace a link between their decision to become an entrepreneur
and their parents. There did not appear to be any gender differences between the
experiences of women and men when discussing their upbringing in general. However,
there were other accounts that showed gender differences, and this was the heavy
influence of fathers, as well as the ways in which participants viewed their parents
influence on the new venture creation decision.
IJEBR Influence of father
13,1 One gender difference that emerged strongly was the influence their mothers and
fathers had on the participants decision to start a new venture. Most participants
recalled that their fathers played the primary role in their decision to start a new
venture. As an indication of this observation, mothers were discussed by 16 of the 50
participants (totalling 25 passages of text), while 29 participants talked of their fathers
48 in the interviews (totalling 66 passages of text). However, not all of these discussions
were in relation specifically to their decision to start a new venture. While this indicates
at the most basic level that fathers may have had more influence, the nature of this
influence is considered of most importance and is explored next. First, perhaps the
most extreme case of parental influence can be seen in the case of one of the women
participants. Her father was a farmer and he took a business-like approach to parenting
his only child:
From an early age, he had what is best described as a business plan for my life. He would take
me to the accountant from when I was about eight years old. He used to let me carry his
briefcase and we would have coffee and cookies and it was pretty cool. That was one of my
first lessons in business. He gave me a cheque book when I was 15 and I had an annual salary,
I had to manage my expenses. We used to have wage rounds every six months, I had to
negotiate (W17).
In this example, it was clear to her that her fathers role in teaching her about business
was the major reason she started a venture of her own. Her father was basically
training her to be able to run the family farm and this was a key factor in her own
development as an entrepreneur. She elaborates:
I guess from an early age I was unconsciously developing this early knowledge of business,
so yes, Its definitely the inspiration for where I am (W17).
Interestingly, once her father passed away she took over the family farm for a number
of years and then decided she wanted to sell it. She found this decision very difficult, as
it was her final tie to her father and she felt like she should keep the farm because of
him. Eventually, she did sell the farm and was pleased to have done so as she can now
focus her business skills on what she has a passion for rather than keeping it because
she was concerned about her fathers wishes. This example stands out as one where
her father influenced her decisions regarding her work and her business, and she could
be seen looking to her father (to please him) even after he died. Another woman
participant also described the strong influence her entrepreneurial father had on her
while growing up:
My dad, he was quite, a bit like my hero I suppose. He wouldnt help, he didnt help but he was
an inspiration in [the] way of his own business . . . he probably nurtured that in me. He didnt
with the others, there were two other girls, because they werent interested, I actually became
quite aligned with him and my other two sisters became quite aligned with my mother. He
was quite a hard man, but I thought he was great (W21).
This participant said she felt inspired by her father and believed that an entrepreneur
needs a role model for inspiration. While her father helped her with her first business
venture in terms of ideas and advice, he refused to help her financially or with
problems that he felt she could solve on her own. For example, at age 15, she wanted to
start a business and it involved buying a large piece of land. Her father suggested she
get a job in order to pay for a deposit on a rental property. She did so, purchased a The
property and made a significant capital gain on it within a year. She then sold it and entrepreneurial
used this money to finance her first business. However, having a father in business
while growing up was not always influential in such a positive way. For one spirit
participant, her father was self-employed and sometimes called to work on important
occasions:
If anything it was probably a negative, because he is an [self-employed]. My memories are of
49
him at Christmas going and having to [work] or missing a birthday dinner or whatever, didnt
happen every year, but only remember the bad ones. . .I have a great relationship with my
dad, always have, he and I have a special bond so its not that I have ever resented the fact
that he hasnt been there, its more poor dad, he has got a real hard time (W1).
In this case, similar to the two previous quotes, she talks about her dad fondly and
highlights the relationship and bond she has with her father. She singles out her father
as being the more influential of her parents and her quote shows she was concerned for
her father especially in terms of the nature of his business (e.g. being on call, working
on holidays). Interestingly, she focuses not on her own perception of growing up with
her father missing some special occasions but focuses on worrying about how her dad
coped with it.
In a similar vein to the women participants discussed here, many of the men who
were motivated by their parents said that their fathers were key figures in influencing
their decision to start a new venture. Participant M1s decision to start a new venture
appeared to be strongly motivated by his father, as his account illustrates:
I had set myself at the age of fifty that I wanted to be running my own business . . .
explicitly decided after my father died, who had the same sort of aspiration but
basically ended up working for other people all his life. Never did it, left it too late and
then died within eighteen months of retiring, and I thought, well I am not going to let
that happen to me (M1).
While he already had aspirations to be an entrepreneur, his father dying was a key
trigger for him to make a decision to start a new venture and to set a time frame for it.
This quote suggests that he believed his father had failed to follow through on his
vision of becoming an entrepreneur and he refused to meet the same fate. The influence
of fathers is also evident in stories from other men participants whose fathers had
businesses of their own, as the following passage illustrates:
He definitely influenced the feeling of independence. He never liked me being a public servant
. . . I certainly admired my fathers ability and determination to make the business work
(M12).
This passage indicates the influence his father had on his decision to subsequently
become an entrepreneur. For M12, choosing not to work with his father in the familys
business was something he felt his father did not like. The desire for independence that
his father instilled in him appeared to have played some part in his decision to
subsequently start his own venture. While he looked to his father with admiration, he
did not want to work for him. Another of the men also viewed his father as being
successful in business and saw him as a role model:
I saw [what] my father did and I wanted to do that, but I didnt want him to do it for me . . .
Maybe I was always trying to outdo him, which I think I did by about 20 times (M20).
IJEBR He looked to his father and wanted to do something similar (owning his own business)
13,1 but at the same time did not want his father to give him all the answers nor help him
directly. This participant spoke of wanting to be independent from his father and of
trying to outdo him. He also suggests he learnt by watching his father rather than
talking to him and he highlights the desire to be independent from his father and not
ask for help. While this participant learnt from his father in a positive way, three other
50 participants had fathers who owned businesses but did not like what they did:
My father died at the age of 53. He was self-employed . . . he was very good at what he did but
he never [was very successful]. He was quite careful and cautious (M14).
While this participants father had owned a business himself M14 saw his father as
being too conservative and not successful. Other men saw the mistakes their fathers
had made with their own businesses and decided they could learn from these
experiences and do better themselves:
Some of the things he did I didnt quite like, I didnt think he had enough focus, all different
industries, doing a whole lot of stuff (M15).
No. Dad was not a success, not a silly man . . . but he was a clever bugger,[he just] never
picked the right things (M9).
Both men spoke of their fathers as being involved in a wide range of entrepreneurial
ventures. These two participants did not consider their fathers to be successful and
looked at their attempts at business ownership with disapproval. While the link
between their fathers and their subsequent decision to start new ventures in these
cases may be implicit, other examples illustrate more clearly how some male
participants looked to their fathers as role models but others wanted to learn from their
mistakes and to outdo them. These experiences appeared to differ from those of some
of the women participants who looked to their fathers for support and encouragement
seeing them as positive role models. The observation that the participants fathers held
more influence than mothers in terms of their childrens later decision to start a venture
is perhaps not surprising. This may be due to the age of most of the participants, where
for their parents generation, it was less common for a woman to own a business than it
is today. Therefore, the majority of the business experience they were exposed to
would have been their fathers experiences.

Influence of mother
As can be seen from the previous discussion, the primary influencer on the
participants motivations for starting a new venture was fathers. As a contrast, this
discussion focuses on excerpts that talk of mothers. The following women illustrate the
differences between their mothers and fathers. Only one woman directly said her
mother influenced her:
My mother particularly [influenced me]. My father for the work ethic . . . Whilst I get a lot of
the business side from my father, my personality, thank god, comes from my mother. Hes too
aggressive, too assertive (W18).
This excerpt from W18 shows the distinction that she made between her personality
and her business side, and she clearly splits the influences into two distinct areas.
She did not want to inherit what she saw as aggressive aspects of her fathers
personality. While this quote shows that there was some influence from her mother, The
other women seemed not to view their mothers so positively: entrepreneurial
I had a fantastic father, my mother was alright, but my father was particularly fantastic. He spirit
had a degree and he believes strongly in education for everyone, even though I am of an era
where some people thought girls should go and be nurses and things (W13).
This participant considered her father to be fantastic, while her mother was alright. 51
She recognised that her father was particularly forward thinking for the time (she is
aged over 55). Another theme emerged from participant W5, who described her mother
as having the ability to be entrepreneurial:
I guess my mother if she didnt have six children, she might have, she would have had
the ability [to be an entrepreneur] . . . She was probably a bit entrepreneurial. She run a
little business from home when we were children (W5).
This excerpt is particularly interesting as this womans mother did in fact have a
business but was clearly not recognised by the participant as being important. In this
case, it may imply that women with large families and being an entrepreneur are
mutually exclusive. The experiences of the men participants who mentioned their
mothers were remarkably similar to the womens accounts. Again, there were no cases
of men participants saying they were specifically influenced by their mothers in the
new venture creation decision. One male entrepreneur, who singled out his father in
earlier quotes as being the key parental role model in his entrepreneurial career, talked
of his mother:
My mother was a great mother. She was. She didnt have a great role in . . . my thought
processes, but my father did (M20).
Here, this participant appeared to focus on the traditional roles of parents, where
mothers were seen as having responsibilities for caring for the family. There was also
some discussion of mothers potentially being seen as an anti-role model, and this seems
to be implied by M2:
My father was a Doctor, my mother didnt bother working, she didnt need to. She played
ladies (M2).
As noted in these excerpts, no participants specifically talked of how they considered
their mothers as important influencers in their decision to start a new venture. The age
of the participants in this study will have influenced some of these findings, where
traditional gendered roles may have been more strongly evident than they are today. It
appears that both women and men participants were equally uninfluenced by their
mothers in relation to the new venture creation decision. Interestingly, even in
examples where the mother and father owned and worked in a business together (such
as a farm), fathers were still described as playing the major influencing role in their
new venture creation decision. The literature suggested that mothers may play a larger
role in their childrens early socialisation than fathers, but the experiences across the
range of participants shows the influence of their mothers was recalled as relatively
limited in any capacity.
IJEBR Discussion
13,1 As can be seen from these findings, an entrepreneurs upbringing appears to be the
seedbed from which the decision to start a new venture emerges. Clearly, the decision
to start a new venture is complicated and multi-faceted but the findings show that
parents appear to be a strong influencing factor. However, this is not to suggest that
the role parents play in this process is the only factor involved. As noted in the
52 literature review, there are often many complex and intertwining motivations for
creating a new venture, and the family is only one possible consideration.
The findings show that parents are a source of inspiration for many participants in
their decisions to start new ventures. They lend weight to suggestions that norms,
attitudes, and values within the family may impact the new venture creation decision
(Aldrich and Cliff, 2003). Most of the participants who said they were influenced by
their parents grew up within a family where entrepreneurship was present (as was the
case for 13 women and 8 men). A family background of owning businesses gave many
of the participants an early view of doing things differently than children whose
parents did not have their own businesses. Their upbringing in an environment where
dinner conversation revolved around parents businesses appears to have been a
contributing factor in the new venture creation decision.
Fathers were discussed as being influential in the participants decision to start a
new venture. Mothers, on the other hand seemed to not have been influential in this
decision. Thus, gender differences were noted with respect to the greater influence
participants described their fathers as having in their new venture creation decision.
This finding is possibly not surprising given that for this sample, it would have been
uncommon when they were growing up for mothers to have businesses of their own.
Therefore, the majority of the business experience they were exposed to would have
come from their fathers. This balance is likely to change over time due to womens
increased participation in the workforce and particularly, as a result of more women
having entrepreneurial experience. In the future, mothers may be more influential in
their childrens subsequent decision to start a new venture.
For some of the women participants, their parents were a source of inspiration and
they learnt valuable lessons from their childhood experiences of their parents owning
businesses. Some women discussed their fathers in relation to learning from them
(what to do, what not to do), being inspired by them and being concerned about them.
While fewer men participants were motivated to start a new venture by their parents,
some of their accounts differed from the women participants. It was observed that for
some men participants appeared to desire to be different from or better than their
father and referred to an apparent desire to be independent from their fathers.

Conclusion and implications for further research

The findings in this study add weight to Aldrich and Cliffs (2003) claim that using a
family embeddedness perspective is a beneficial way of understanding the new
venture creation process. The primary objectives of this study were to explore the
nature of parents on the new venture creation decision, and to investigate any gender
differences in the influence of mothers and fathers, and between men and women in
how they saw the role of their parents in their new venture creation decision. Some
conclusions about these gender differences follow, coupled with a number of
suggestions for further research questions that would add to our understanding of
this under-researched area. Because the familys impact on the new venture creation The
decision has not yet received a great deal of research attention, the current study entrepreneurial
provides much rich qualitative data from which to develop further research
questions. While this paper contributes to our understanding of a previously spirit
neglected area, there is still much work to be done in order to understand the
influence of the family on the decision to start a new venture. Thus, there are many
opportunities to undertake further research. In the first instance, more extensive 53
qualitative work is called for, or a combination of both quantitative and qualitative
methods in order to advance our understanding of this area.
The findings presented in paper have shown that it is indeed possible for parents to
ignite the entrepreneurial spirit in their children. Demographic studies of entrepreneurs
have long concluded that a family history of entrepreneurship is often linked to the
decision to start a new venture. The results of the current study shows that this was
indeed the case for the majority of participants who said they were influenced by their
parents in their decision to start a new venture. One suggested avenue for further
research would be to compare the decision to start a new venture between individuals
who had a family background in entrepreneurship and those who did not. This may
allow us to isolate the relative impact of the family in relation to other motivators in
order to better ascertain the role of parents in the new venture creation decision. Given
that just over half of the participants in this study said they were influenced by their
parents, there were also a similar number who said they were not. While these
participants ultimately still became entrepreneurs, it raises questions as to where (and
how) their entrepreneurial spirit emerged. For example, did the participants desire
independence from an employer, or did they learn about entrepreneurship via
education, or was it an innate desire to start a new venture? These other potential
factors could be explored in more depth to see whether (and how) they were important
igniting the entrepreneurial sprit.
A further suggestion relates to the relative importance of the family when
compared to other motivating factors. While an indication of the ranking of
motivating factors can be gauged from prior quantitative studies it would be
interesting to view how these motivations differed in their impact on the new venture
creation decision. Motivating factors often work in combination and are complex, and
it is difficult to suggest that the role parents play is more or less important than the
other groupings of factors. Thus, it would appear to be productive for researchers to
make greater use of qualitative methods to understand how the motivators interlink
rather than continuing to contribute to the extensive literature that focuses on
ranking various motivators.
While this study found some pronounced gender differences in both the influence
of mothers and fathers and the experiences of women and men in the sample, more
extensive gender comparisons could be made. In particular, questions emerge as to
the apparently limited role of mothers in the new venture creation decision. Thus, it
would be interesting to explore in greater depth the nature of entrepreneurs maternal
relationship. In addition, more research exploring gender dynamics within the
entrepreneurs parents relationship would give greater insights into other, less
obvious, reasons for this heavy dominance of fathers influence in the new venture
creation decision. Alongside the gender differences between mothers and fathers, a
further gender difference was noted in the ways which women and men recalled the
IJEBR nature of the influence their parents had on their decision to start a new venture.
13,1 While some men appeared to desire independence from their fathers, or to compete
with them, some women on the other hand learnt from, were encouraged by, and saw
parents as role models. These observations apparently parallel traditional masculine
and feminine stereotypes (e.g. independence versus interdependence), and further
exploration of this would be useful in a later study. For example, studies that
54 included questions regarding roles and relationships within entrepreneurs families
would assist in gaining a greater understanding the nature of these gender
differences.
As noted, there are many changes occurring in the composition of the family (e.g.
number of children decreasing), and previous research has suggested that they may
impact entrepreneurship. These transitions clearly extend beyond entrepreneurs
families and exist at a societal level but can have effects on the new venture creation
process (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003). The results of this study showed that the potential
negative flow-on effects (such as fewer start-up resources being available from parents)
did not seem to have impacted these participants, as much of the influence that they
took from their parents was from their childhood. They did not appear to want tangible
resources from their parents at the time of start-up of their new venture, but the effect
of changes to the composition of the family may yet impact the next generation of
entrepreneurs.
As with any research, there are potential limitations. The sample size may be
considered by researchers in the positivist tradition to be a potential limitation and
claims may be made that a larger sample would have been more appropriate. In studies
with a larger sample size it would be worthwhile to explore differences between those
who were influenced by their parents and those who were not in order to further tease
out the nature of any family-related differences. Secondly, every entrepreneur has his
or her own motivations for starting a new venture and all of these are important and
relevant to that individual. However, as is the case in most research, this study
attempts to gauge themes that seem important to the participants as a group. In doing
so, close attention has been paid to maintaining individuals voices, but data reduction
is a necessary yet difficult task in qualitative research. While every effort has been
made to voice the participants views, it is the authors own interpretation of what
seemed important to the participants that ultimately appears here. However,
interpretive researchers acknowledge that we bring our biases and assumptions to any
research (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). Thus, the relationship between researcher and
participant is viewed as important and necessary (Benny and Hughes, 1970; King,
1994).
The results of this study extends our understanding of the role of the family in the
new venture creation decision, and lends support to Rogoff and Hecks (2003)
contention that the family fuels the fire of entrepreneurship. It adds to the limited
research in the area that suggests that the family can act as an incubator to
entrepreneurship (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003, Belcourt, 1988) and provides many insights
into the ways in which parents can influence the new venture creation decision. If we
return to the title of this paper, which questioned whether the role of parents in the new
venture creation decision was gendered, it would seem there is a strong indication that
it is indeed gendered. As noted, more research would assist in better understanding the
nature of these gender differences.
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Appendix. Family-related interview questions

.
Why did you start the business?
.
Did anyone encourage (or discourage) you to start your own business?
.
What were the main expectations you had for your business at start-up?
.
Personal motivation what did you hope to achieve personally?
 .
Were there family related motivations at start-up parents, children, siblings, partner? The
.
Are there family related motivations now? entrepreneurial
.
Do any family members work in business? Who/in what capacity?
spirit
.
Does/did anyone in family own a business? What type of business/when?
.
How do/did family members react to starting the business?
.
In the future, what are your goals for the business (including personal and family goals)? 59
Corresponding author
Jodyanne Kirkwood can be contacted at: jkirkwood@business.otago.ac.nz

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