A Gendered View of Risk Taking in Venture Philanthropy

Abstract

Relying on gender-role congruity theory, this paper investigates the relationship between the gender of the top management teams of venture philanthropy firms and their business risk-taking orientation. The research also assesses if and how experience moderates this relationship. Using a combination of survey data to capture the venture philanthropy firm’s risk orientation and biographical data to identify managers’ gender and experience, it finds that only gender affects business risk-orientation in these firms. Surprisingly, this is the opposite direction than expected, whereby teams with a higher proportion of women have a higher risk-taking profile. This suggests the need to revise the applicability of gender role congruity theory, the existence of a gender-bind dilemma, and the relevance of context in venture philanthropy.

Keywords:

• Gender
• human capital
• impact investing
• risk-taking
• social investing
• venture philanthropy

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the associate editor Richard Hazenberg and the anonymous reviewers that helped us in improving earlier versions of the manuscript. We would also like to thank Candida Brush, Sophie Bacq, Andrew Crane, and Isabel Fernandez-Mateo as well as participants of the 2020 BCERC, 2020 ISIRC and 2020 Sinergie Conferences for insights and comments on our work. Above all, we are extremely grateful to those investors that participated in our survey and to EVPA and AVPN who are working on creating a social investment ecosystem.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).