ArticlePublisher preview available

Gendered regulations and SMES' performance in transition economies

February 2022
Small Business Economics 58(5)

DOI:10.1007/s11187-020-00436-7

Authors:

Natalia Vershinina

Audencia Business School

Liang Han

University of Reading

Show all 7 authorsHide

This article explores the culture-regulations-gender triad in relation to SMEs’ performance. Using a firm-level panel dataset drawn from 27 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia between 2005 and 2014, we show that women and men experience and respond differently to regulations. Women take regulations very seriously and as a result, their SMEs see improved performance, whereas men discount the influence of regulations which then depresses the performance of their SMEs. However, when women respond to regulatory enforcers, it erodes the performance of their SMEs, whereas when men engage enforcers, the performance of their SMEs improves. The fact that women and men experience and respond to the same regulations differently—regardless of country effect and whether their SMEs are high- or low-performing businesses—suggests that regulations perpetuate gender biases, thus impacting not only individuals but even the organizations they lead. Our study expands gendered institutions theory by clarifying how regulations diffuse cultural values and influence women and men, as well as their SMEs, differently.

The conceptual model, hypotheses, and statistical support. *: Significant support. a: Partial support. Solid line: direct effects. Broken line: moderating effects

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Gendered regulations and SME performance in transition

economies

Natalia Vershinina &Gideon Markman &Liang Han &

Peter Rodgers &John Kitching &Nigar Hashimzade &

Rowena Barrett

Accepted: 30 September 2020

#Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract This article explores the culture-regulations-

gender triad in relation to small and medium enterprises’

(SMEs’) performance. Using a firm-level panel dataset

drawn from 27 countries in Central and Eastern Europe

and Central Asia between 2005 and 2014, we show that

women and men experience and respond differently to

regulations. Women take regulations very seriously and

as a result, their SMEs see improved performance,

whereas men discount the influence of regulations

which then depresses the performance of their SMEs.

However, when women respond to regulatory enforcers,

it erodes the performance of their SMEs, whereas when

men engage enforcers, the performance of their SMEs

improves. The fact that women and men experience and

respond to the same regulations differently—regardless

of country effect and whether their SMEs are high- or

low-performing businesses—suggests that regulations

perpetuate gender biases, thus impacting not only indi-

viduals but even the organizations they lead. Our study

expands gendered institutions theory by clarifying how

regulations diffuse cultural values and influence women

and men, as well as their SMEs, differently.

Keywords Culture .Regulations .Gender .SMEs .

Entrepreneurship

JEL classifications J16 .J24 .L26 .L51 .P2

1Introduction

This study investigates the intersection of culture, regu-

lations, and gender and the implications of this intersec-

tion for the performance of women-led small and

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-020-00436-7

N. Vershinina (*)

Department of Business and Society, Audencia Business School,

Nantes 44312, France

e-mail: nvershinina@audencia.com

G. Markman

Department of Management, College of Business, Colorado State

University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA

e-mail: gideon.markman@colostate.edu

L. Han

Henley Business School, University of Reading, Whiteknights,

Reading RG6 6UD, UK

e-mail: liang.han@henley.ac.uk

P. Rodgers

Department of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource

Management, Southampton Business School, University of

Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK

e-mail: p.rodgers@soton.ac.uk

J. Kitching

Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 1LQ,

e-mail: j.kitching@kingston.ac.uk

N. Hashimzade

Department of Economics and Finance, Brunel University

London, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK

e-mail: nigar.hashimzade@brunel.ac.uk

R. Barrett

QUT Entrepreneurship, Queensland University of Technology,

Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia

e-mail: rowena.barrett@qut.edu.au

/ Published online: 24 November 2020

Small Bus Econ (2022) 58:1113–1130

Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

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