Analyzing the Influence of Gender Upon High- Technology Venturing Within the Context of Business Incubation Susan Marlow Maura McAdam We explore the influence of sex role attribution and associated gendered ascriptions upon the entrepreneurial experiences of a female high-technology business owner operating within the context of business incubation. Our literature analysis and empirical evidence suggest that stereotypical gendered expectations surrounding incubated high-technology venturing reproduce masculine norms of entrepreneurial behavior. The adoption of a gendered perspective to explore the experience of business incubation responds to contemporary calls to embed feminist analyses within the entrepreneurial field of enquiry. Furthermore, we draw upon evidence from a detailed case study informed by a life history narrative to explore a female entrepreneur’s experience of incubated high-technology entrepreneurship. Introduction Although women remain disadvantaged in contemporary waged work in terms of returns and status (Holmes, 2007; McRobbie, 2009) they have increased their presence such that they now constitute, upon average, just under half of all employees in developed economies (OECD, 2003; ONS, 2010; Women and Equality Unit, 2008). The presence of women in entrepreneurial careers however, remains low; so within the European Union 1 women constitute approximately one quarter of the self-employed and one tenth of business owners (Hausmann, Tyson, & Zahid, 2007; OECD). Furthermore, these ventures are overly concentrated in crowded, low value added sectors (Marlow, Carter, & Shaw, 2008) with the majority of women-owned businesses in the retail and catering sectors (50%) and in the health/education service sectors (41%) (ECDGEI, 2008). So, although women business owners constitute a much smaller subset of the entrepreneurial Please send correspondence to: Maura McAdam, tel.: +44 02890972521; e-mail: m.mcadam@qub.ac.uk, and to Susan Marlow at smhum@dmu.ac.uk. 1. The share of female entrepreneurship within North American economies is not included in this discussion given that the definition of ownership differs between those and European countries such that the calculations are not directly comparable; see Marlow et al. (2008). P T E & 1042-2587 © 2011 Baylor University 1 January, 2011 DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6520.2010.00431.x