Gender Stereotypes and Social Support in the Digital Entrepreneurial Community

In this study, we examine how gender stereotype biases affect the social support given to entrepreneurs by members of the digital entrepreneurial community. While entrepreneurship is a socially embedded activity, extant social support research in entrepreneurship remains scant. We hypothesize that in the digital entrepreneurial community, when entrepreneurs’ conversation topics match their gender role (i.e., being a male and struggling with work-life balance or being a female and struggling with business difficulties), social media commenters’ perceived gender role congruity tends to be higher, which in turn leads to a higher likelihood of providing social support. We also hypothesize that social media commenters’ gender will moderate the relationship between entrepreneurs’ gender and social media commenters’ perceived gender role congruity. The results from three studies confirm our hypotheses.