The influence of gender on entrepreneurial intention: The mediating role of perceptual factors

The empirical evidence devoted to analyze the impact of perceptual factors in explaining the differences in the entrepreneurial intention of men and women is still limited and not entirely conclusive (Shinnar et al., 2012; Wilson et al., 2009). This non-conclusive research is significantly more noteworthy when the analysis is focused on the entrepreneurial intention of men and women once they become entrepreneurs. Drawing on this gap and taking as starting point the premises of Social Feminist Theory, our paper aims to examine the mediating role of perceptual factors on the relationship between gender and entrepreneurial intention of non-entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs. Drawing on a sample provided by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Project of 21,697 Spanish non-entrepreneurs and 2899 Spanish entrepreneurs, our results have shown that, in general terms, perceptual factor fully mediate the relationship between gender and the entrepreneurial intention of non-entrepreneurs, whereas such mediating impact disappears when people become entrepreneurs.