How Institutional Logics Influence Growth: A Field Experiment with Tunisian Women Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurial training programmes promoting women’s entrepreneurship in low- and middle-income countries command significant global attention and concomitant resources. Despite this broad investment, many ventures in these contexts fail to grow. Prior research suggests that institutionalized patterns of behaviors, in part dictated by institutional logics, may cause this lack of growth. In the context of Tunisian female entrepreneurship, this research explores the effects of community and market logics on entrepreneurial growth outcomes. Using a field experiment, we demonstrate that institutional logics affect the growth aspirations of entrepreneurs through individual empowerment and emotional energy. This research has theoretical implications for institutional logics, entrepreneurial growth, and emotions literatures. Firstly, institutional logics affect entrepreneurial growth outcomes. Secondly, logics are processed by individuals through both cognitive (empowerment) and social (emotions) constructs and we contribute to knowledge of the integrated macro to micro psychological and social processes of institutional logics. Finally, cultural differences explain why logics do not have the expected effects we think they may in the promotion of Western neoliberal entrepreneurial training programs.