How much does the “same-gender effect” matter in VCs' assessments of entrepreneurs?

Our study uses cognitive mapping techniques to take into account how the same/opposite gender influences the cognitive evaluations of venture capitalists (VCs). Contrary to what has often been discussed in previous entrepreneurship literature, our results report women VCs evaluate women entrepreneurs more critically, and men VCs evaluate men entrepreneurs more critically. However, overall, the VCs' vaguer processing and lower rating of women's venturing compared to men's indicate a general structure of subordinating women's venturing compared to men's venturing. Ultimately, this contributes with an alternative view to explain what we see on the VC scene: women entrepreneurs are more likely to be rejected. We discuss implications of these results as well as implications for future study.