1 LEGITIMACY, COMPETENCE, AND SOCIAL CAPITAL: LEVERAGING PERSONAL AND STRUCTURAL RESOURCES IN WOMEN-LED SMEs IN RUSSIA Tatiana Iakovleva 1 and Jill Kickul 23 Erin McFee Whereas contemporary research demonstrates that women entrepreneurs across the world recognize precursors of growth and the importance of activities such as information seeking and planning in strategic leadership roles, our study contributes to the literature by investigating the influence of a comparatively more diverse set of factors. These go beyond industry type to target critical elements directly supporting the needs, development, and growth of women business owners. Additionally and more importantly, while there are a number of studies, identifying women SME success factors have been carried out in advanced countries (Anna et al., 1999; Chaganti and Parasuraman, 1997; Lerner and Almor, 2002), economic research on entrepreneurship in transition economies is less developed and only a few studies have used a rigorous scientific approach (Tkachev and Kolvereid, 1999). The lack of information on female entrepreneurs is especially apparent. According to Ylinempåå and Chechurina (2000), Russian women have limited options to achieve a leading position in industry, politics or other spheres of social production. Those limitations serve as “push” factors for women to enter the entrepreneurial sector, where starting new, smaller firms serves the double purpose of both generating additional family income, and creating an arena for self-fulfilment. The purpose of 1 doctoral student and research fellow of Bode Graduate School of Business, 8049 Bode, Norway e-mail:Tatiana.Iakovleva@nforsk.no, tel. +4797626214, (corresponding author) 2 Elizabeth J. McCandless Professor of Entrepreneurship, Simmons School of Management 409 Commonwealth Avenue Boston, MA 02215 Telephone: 617-521-3877 Fax: 617-521-3880 jill.kickul@simmons.edu 3 Erin McFee is a graduate student at Simmons School of Management, Erin.McFee@simmons.edu.