Oh, it’s complex to see women here, isn’t it and this seems to take all my attention! A repertory grid approach to capture venture capitalists cognitive structures when evaluating women entrepreneurs

We introduce Personal Construct Theory (PCT) and the Repertory Grid methodology to investigate deeper differences in the way government venture capital financiers cognitively process to evaluate 77 investment proposals from women and men entrepreneurs. In our study of financiers’ who are by law forbidden to discriminate, we reveal an underlying cognitive bias when evaluating women entrepreneurs. We find that the difficulty when assessing women’s venture potential, as indicated by the greater thought complexity and the excessive weight financiers place on the person rather than the full business case, can be considered to represent the underlying thought mechanism that affect women’s chances of securing financing. This finding suggests women entrepreneurs are looked upon as being role incongruent: misdirecting attention in evaluations. Evaluating women entrepreneurs is a cognitive challenge, because they deviate from the stereotype of an entrepreneur.