Whether analogue countries exhibit similar women entrepreneurial activities? Danish Junaid and Zheng He School of Management and Economics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China Amit Yadav Chengdu Neusoft University, Chengdu, China, and Lydia Asare-Kyire School of Management and Economics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China Abstract Purpose – While there are many studies on the impacts of formal institutions such as government financial supporting and tax preferential policies on women entrepreneurial entry, few attempted to explore how informal institutions causes cross-country differences in women entrepreneurship. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether countries (Pakistan and Malaysia) with similar religious belief, political system and government policies exhibits similar level of women entrepreneurial activity from an informal institutional perspective. Design/methodology/approach – This study used Global entrepreneurship monitor (GEM) data for the years 2010–2012 and employed probit regression analysis to examine the impacts of cultural-cognitive and social-normative institutions on women entrepreneurial activity. Findings – The findings reveal profound differences of women’s entrepreneurial activities between Pakistan and Malaysia. While cultural-cognitive dimension shows substantial impact for both nations, social-normative dimension explains the main differences in women’s entrepreneurial activity. Practical implications – This study proposes that policymakers may craft policies to enhance women skills, knowledge and networking as well as positive societal attitudes to foster women entrepreneurial activities. Originality/value – This study shows that countries with the same religion and similar formal institutions can also exhibit different level of women entrepreneurial activity. In Pakistan, the negative societal attitudes in the form of deep rooted traditional beliefs as well as misinterpreted religious concepts for women role create formidable challenges and inhibit business opportunities for them. By contrast, favorable social perception and societal attitudes in Malaysia encourage women to pursue their entrepreneurial activities. Keywords Global entrepreneurship monitor (GEM), Informal institutions, Islamic countries, Women’s entrepreneurial activity Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction Women entrepreneurs account for substantial proportion of entrepreneurial population and provide important contributions to innovation, employment creation and economic development (Brush et al. , 2006). According to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’ s (GEM) report, about 126m women were starting or running new businesses in 67 economies (Kelley et al. , 2012). Nevertheless the differences in women’ s entrepreneurial activity vary widely across nations. For instance, the proportion of women entrepreneurs in Islamic nations ranging from 23 percent in Kuwait to 12 percent in Bahrain to 9 percent in Oman and it continues declining to a low of seven percent in Qatar and Saudi Arabia (Thomas, 2000). Recently, these differences have caught much attention (Roomi and Parrott, 2008; Dana, 2009; Tracey, 2012; Dechant and Lamky, 2005). Previous studies have found that the entrepreneurship is contextually embedded in a country’s institutional environment, which causes cross-country differences in women’s Management Decision Vol. 58 No. 4, 2020 pp. 759-772 © Emerald Publishing Limited 0025-1747 DOI 10.1108/MD-06-2018-0681 Received 6 July 2018 Revised 3 March 2019 13 May 2019 Accepted 7 June 2019 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0025-1747.htm Social Science Planning Fund of Ministry of Education of China. 759 Women entrepreneurial activities