Female Leadership and Contested Authority: The Underside of Gendered Entrepreneurial Success

Abstract

Every business leader faces managerial challenges, but women encounter additional obstacles. This is evidenced by this study, which focuses on the case of a female leader facing authority and leadership issues within the prosperous business she founded. To understand the reasons for these challenges, we zero in on our analysis on the study of organizational conflicts collected during a two-year action research. Our findings encourage a deeper exploration of the mechanisms through which women entrepreneurs can overcome obstacles related to the multiplicity of their social and professional roles, while suggesting the exploration of alternative and more subjective criteria for evaluating entrepreneurial success.