The salient role of institutions in Women’ s entrepreneurship: a critical review and agenda for future research Daniela Giménez 1 & Andrea Calabrò 2 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2017 Abstract Institutions play an important role in women’ s and men’ s entrepreneurial behaviors. This article provides a systematic review of institutions and women’ s entrepreneurship literature through an institutional lens, with a particular focus on informal and formal institutions. The article sets out to explore institutions for women’ s entrepreneurship, illustrating why having an institutional perspec- tive of women’ s entrepreneurship contributes to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. To reach this aim, we analyze and classify the scholarship by explanatory factors and type of informal and formal institutions. The article suggests that gender roles, as an informal institution, influence the creation of both informal and formal institutions, and in turn, the women’ s entrepreneurial behaviors is based on gender roles. Finally, a theoretical model is developed, which allocates women’ s entrepreneurship in the center and shows the role of institutional environment in their decision to start new ventures. Implications for future research are finally discussed. Keywords Women entrepreneurs . Female . Gender . Formal and informal institutions . New ventures . Institutional change Int Entrep Manag J https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-017-0480-5 * Daniela Giménez Daniela.GimenezJimenez@uni-wh.de Andrea Calabrò a.calabro@ipag.fr 1 University of Witten/Herdecke, Alfred-Herrhausen-Straße, 50, 58448 Witten, Germany 2 IPAG LAB, IPAG Business School, 4 Boulevard Carabacel, 06000 Nice, France