Breaking the Barriers: Gender, Culture and Diversity in Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Associate Professor Emerita Hilda Rømer Christensen from the Department of Sociology has together with other authors edited a new volume published by De Gruyter.
Breaking the Barriers: Gender, Culture and Diversity in Innovation and Entrepreneurship introduces the concept of the “cultural fix” as a fourth strategy for gender-responsive smart innovation and entrepreneurship (GRSIE). This approach complements the existing strategies to “fix the numbers,” “fix the institutions,” and “fix the knowledge.” By adding this fourth pillar, the cultural fix enriches feminist entrepreneurship and innovation studies.
This book connects to Gender in entrepreneurship and innovation as an upcoming research field, echoing political and economic interests The recent body of literature in the field points to culture in a broad sense, to be of growing relevance, which addresses various dynamics of gender and in shaping women’s entrepreneurship. However existing research also show that culture is understudied in both empirical and conceptual terms which this book fills out.
What does this book offer?
At an overall level it fills out a range of gaps in terms of recognizing culture as pivotal and to be of growing relevance for dynamics of gender and in shaping women’s entrepreneurship. This book frames entrepreneurship and innovation through gender, cultural, and intersectional lenses. Besides it offers a fresh perspective called the cultural or the 4th fix of culture. More specifically the focus in the various chapters are on:
- Culture – as a cornerstone in both literature and in a methodology of the “cultural fix”
- Gender – urge for the use and practice of intersectional and diversity approaches
- Masculinity - identified as a blind spot in analysis and strategies
- A decolonizing and anti racist approach.
- Includes location, and geographical context
All these findings are vital and have been considered – as part of the cultural fix. The various chapters spell out the cultural fix- or the 4th fix as a new and promising perspective. Culture influences not only how business initiatives are developments but also how norms and prejudices are practiced.
The book and the cultural fix has been appreciated by a range of leading scholars in the field.
Read the volume by editors Hilda Rømer Christensen, Andrée Woodcock, Nicola Marsden, Barbara De Micheli and Alena Křížková.
The volume is open access and funded by Horizon Europe.