Entrepreneurial intentions and gender: pathways to start-up Shahrokh Nikou, Malin Brännback and Alan L. Carsrud Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland, and Candida G. Brush Arthur M Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, Babson College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to revisit the conceptualization and measurement of entrepreneurial intentions. Significant studies anchored in the Theory of Planned Behavior use causal statistical approaches to entrepreneurial intentions. This methodological approach, leads to the conclusion that there is a single pathway for all groups of people to achieve business start-up. Even though theory suggests approaches by women entrepreneurs to start a business may be influenced by different factors from those influencing men, results are inconclusive in these analyses. The authors argue that methodological preferences for linear, causal analytical approaches limit the understanding of gender similarities and differences in the business start-up process. The authors propose that when considering diverse samples, it is unreasonable to assume there is only a single pathway leading to business start-up. Design/methodology/approach – Building on fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) and data set of 2,038 respondents, the authors investigate factors predicting the intentions to start a business and evaluate the alternative conjunctive paths that emerge. Findings – The fsQCA results shows that the relationship among conditions leading to entrepreneurial intentions is complex and is best represented as multiple and conjectural causation configurations. In other words, there are multiple significant pathways (refers to equifinality) that predict intentions to start a business start-up, and there are significant differences by gender. Originality/value – This study is one of the first to examine the roll of gender as a sperate condition in the analysis. This paper offers implications for theory and future research and highlights the complexity of this domain. Keywords Gender, Entrepreneurship, Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, Entrepreneurship intentions Paper type Research paper Introduction One of the most important questions in the entrepreneurship domain concerns factors predicting the intentions to start a business. Since the late 1980s, a considerable number of studies have examined entrepreneurship as intentional behavior and analyzed the formation of intentions to start a business as the first step in the launch process (Kautonen et al., 2015; Krueger et al., 2000; Liñán and Fayolle, 2015). Early research on entrepreneurial intentions proposes that intentions are the best predictor of planned behavior, especially when that behavior is difficult to observe, rarely occurs, or involves unpredictable time lags (Krueger et al., 2000, p. 413). To accommodate this claim, Krueger and his colleagues state that entrepreneurship is a proto-typical example of that type of planned behavior, as starting a new venture requires a careful planning, for which the intentions-centered models such as Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA: Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) and Theory of Planned IJGE 11,3 348 Received 30 April 2019 Revised 9 July 2019 13 July 2019 Accepted 23 July 2019 International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship Vol. 11 No. 3, 2019 pp. 348-372 © Emerald Publishing Limited 1756-6266 DOI 10.1108/IJGE-04-2019-0088 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1756-6266.htm